How many screwballs does it take to bulb up a light? American sports TV is in the throes of a mindless epidemic: The bigger the event, the less we’re shown.
Networks spend millions, billions for exclusive rights. Next, they beg us to watch.
Finally, they do whatever it takes to minimize the live coverage. It’s nuts.
Heck, FOX now is nationally recognized for its superior achievement in live coverage of fans watching the World Series. Patience, grasshoppers, the games are in there, someplace.
How many viewers, do you suppose, tuned to ESPN’s live coverage of British Open eager to watch players warming up on the range, to hear lengthy on-camera interviews and essays, to watch features and hear/see assorted chats among commentators and analysts and to watch repeated promos to watch the one-of-a-kind British Open live on ESPN?
One? None?
So, then, why does all of that become loaded into the coverage?
Thursday, it wasn’t enough to simply tell us that Open starter Ivor Robson stands at the first tee, introducing every player, never abandoning his position, not even to hit the head — by this time an old, annual story — ESPN abandoned live coverage to present a feature on the man and his bladder.
Friday, as it began to rain, ESPN’s Scott Van Pelt noted that the rain “does nothing to deter the thousands who line the fairways and fill the grandstands.”
If that’s the case, why should those watching on ESPN be deterred by ESPN from watching? What happened to TV’s goal of providing “the best seat in the house”? When did the removal of that seat become part of the plan?
Even Tiger Woods acolytes would acknowledge Friday’s senselessness of repeatedly leaving the course where a major is being played to show Woods on the practice green before he played, then on the practice range after he played.
It’s not that ESPN destroyed coverage of the first two rounds, it’s more that it gave it a real good shot. And that’s nuts.
Expect replay delays late in NBA games
We All have squirmed our way through the last two minutes of close NBA games, all suffered through their endless endings. Well, they’re about to grow longer.
The NBA has approved two replay rule additions, both to be invoked only in the final two minutes or throughout OT, and both to inspect judgment calls. Oy!
One wonders if the NBA has thought this one through, or, like the NFL’s “instant” replay rule, will it be a 25-years-and-counting work in progress.
The NBA will use replays late in games to examine “restricted zone” block/charge calls and goaltending. Both are often calls that could go either way, thus the likelihood of changing calls in such cases often will become a matter of “perhaps” or a second opinion rather than an unequivocal fact.
In the case of a goaltending call, such a rule addition opens a can of crazy. If the call is ruled to have been wrong, then what? Restart the game from that point? Whose ball is it? Jump ball? Draw straws? How much time on the shot clock?
Given that a goaltending that isn’t called can’t cause a whistle, do you just ignore that side of the same coin?
It’s one thing to try to reinvent the wheel, another to try to perfect the flat tire.
* More golf, more ESPN, more ridiculous: For years, ESPN has been neglectfully destroying golf highlights by covering the hole with its “Bottom Line” graphics. It just doesn’t take care to take care, thus it’s safe to assume by now that ESPN just doesn’t care.
To make matters worse, ESPN Classic’s programming, designed to hype its coverage of the U.S. and British Opens by showing tapes of past Opens, destroys much of those telecasts by doing the same — covering the cups with that crawl.
Last month ESPN Classic wrecked old U.S. Open tapes by covering the holes, last week ESPN Classic did it to old British Open tapes. ESPN has repeatedly been encouraged to demonstrate some common sense — foresight and quality control — on such telecasts, but nothing changes.
Newsflash: After today comes tomorrow
ESPN’s dishonest habit of taking credit where none is due has become so apparent that those it’s designed to impress (fool) are left laughing.
Last week, ESPN reported the Knicks had until Tuesday to match the Rockets’ offer to Jeremy Lin, crediting ESPN’s Marc Stein with that scoop.
But as Carlos Burgos, a reader from Virginia suggests, ESPN also should have credited Stein with the scoop that “Wednesday will follow Tuesday,” as the NBA’s three-day deadline to match such offers is a matter of common knowledge.
* Even newer golf commentators parrot the goofiest TV-talk. Friday, ESPN’s Tom Rinaldi asked Rory McIlroy about a shot that “found its way into a bunker” — as if it wasn’t McIlroy’s fault, as if he didn’t hit into the bunker, as if it was the ball’s decision.
* A former WWF/WWE content man wonders if, in the coming 1,000th episode of “Raw,” Vince McMahon will present a roll call of WWF/WWE TV performers who didn’t live past 45. “Or would that take too long?”
* Reader Bill Jerome has a question: If Michael Kay called Derek Jeter’s 3,000th hit — a home run — “History, with an exclamation point!” (a good call, too) how will he handle PED-empowered Alex Rodriguez’s next historic homer? Jerome suggests, “History, with a question mark!”