TV Sports coverage thread

Thought we might start a generic TV sports coverage thread. Likes, dislikes, of ESPN and other networks.

Find it kind of sad that ABC no longer programs weekend sports at all. They'll show golf majors, college football, the NBA as they come up on the schedule but now they're showing movies and TV shows on the weekends, all the product of ESPN taking over the sports department and not wanting to split viewers. I'd really like to see Wide World of Sports back. Heck, World's Strongest Man reruns would be okay.

Looking forward to the Hall of Fame game tonight, don't know if NBC's studio crew will be part of it.

 

Joe Morgan still sucks.

 

I heart ESPN. [/suckup]

 

Dan's initial post reminds me of watching bowling on Saturday afternoons with my Dad. Does anyone remember when no one had bowled a perfect game on national TV? Seemed like once a month my Dad would call me in from the backyard to tell me someone was working on a perfect game. Never happened, at least during my childhood.

It was also very cool when the PBA made its stop in Connecticut. The local alley was owned by someone on our street and we always saw him sitting in the first or second row. Made me feel like I knew a celeb or something.

 

Hon, I used to watch bowling on TV. When I'd flip past. But I NEVER would have called someone in to tell them about a possible 300 game.

 

LAY OFF MY DAD!!!!

 

I missed the football game tonight. I needed a dose of football. Even it was preseason. Now the only sporting event that is on is the Yankees Red Sox game. I could not hate two teams anymore if I tried.

 

You'll see less and less sports on ABC, too, other than what the leagues they carry contractually require (e.g., The Mouse's contract with the Big Ten requires a minimum number of games on ABC). When ESPN gets the rights to the BCS from Fox in a couple of years, the games will be on the cable channel.

Part of this is ratings-driven. As the audience gets more and more fractured (and we are more saturated with sports), what nets expect of ratings is different. A 6.0 rating is very good for a sports event on TV. It's horrible for a network show, especially in prime time.

The death of sports on regular TV really came in the mid-1990s when ESPN realized it could get away with a per-viewer charge for carrying its programming (that also led to the explosion of cable prices). Some cable companies tried to play hardball, but they all relented and eventually paid the fee (and to try to force more subscribers to pick up cable, they began to move their marquee events off regular TV and onto cable).

However, the rest of the sports world took notice, and began to pull more and more games off regular TV and onto cable channels they have ownership interest in. As recently as 20 years ago, MLB teams syndicated their broadcasts, and I could watch 30+ Cubs, White Sox and Reds games on local TV in Indianapolis, plus most of the Pacers' road games (naturally, home games were not televised), and all Indiana & Purdue college basketball games. Now, the only MLB or NBA games on local TV are the network Games of the Week and you can only get the Hoosiers & Boilers when the CBS Game of the Week shows them. I have 25 over-the-air channels now, but about 10% of the televised sports options than what I had 25 years ago when we had 5 channels.

To me, this is a greater fleecing of the consumer than the hyperinflationary ticket prices of the last few years, and it hits everybody -- even those who don't follow sports. Those of us who do not have cable/satellite (because we've been priced out of the market) are essentially shut out from watching sports because of a money grab by the networks.

 

It was worth sitting through a preseason game just to watch that fake punt.

 

Between TO, Vince Young, Collinsworth, Mortensen's soon to be cut kid, the unis and the HOFers, and Dungy, it was pretty good.

 

This is a good idea for a thread, DannO.

My dad was a Schenkel-Burton-Saturday afternoon fanatic. Whatever we were doing on Saturday -- and bowling was usually a part of it -- we HAD to be home by 3:30, when bowling would come on. And when the Tip of the Week came on, I had to STFU, so my dad could hear it.

Good times.

Later, when I was writing sports, I got to cover the then-summer PBA event in Riverside. Told my dad Marshall Holman bought me a beer during an interview and you'd of thought I won the Pulitzer.

 

It was a totally meanignless, useless NFL exhibiton game.
Not even close to watching a baseball game that meant someting.