I may be in the minority here, but to me the primary value of announcers is less about narrating the event and more about providing insight on the things we aren't able to see on our screen. If the only view and sounds of the event announcers have is the exact same thing we get at home, then announcers' presence loses value to the point that they almost detract more from the event than add to it.
If FOX is all about cutting costs - and I can't imagine the cost of a couple plane tickets and a night in a hotel amounts to much in the grand scheme - then just do away with announcers altogether and pipe in the public address feed.
I would think if the conference is that unhappy about this, now would be the perfect time to address it with media rights in negotiation.
I can believe that, even though I seldom notice the public address on TV.
Another option would be to pipe in the radio feed of each team and let fans choose which one they want. This obviously will present hurdles in the linear TV format as far as getting distribution of two separate feeds/channels for one event, but it certainly works in theory (and ESPN does it with the CFP). And if I understand the tech side of it correctly it becomes much more feasible with streaming broadcasts.
Not more feasible with streaming. There are so many less than the best pieces to that that synching is a huge problem. Delays with streams of over a minute are not uncommon. Yes, ESPN pulls it off pretty well for a few big events, but at a considerable price that the CFP playoffs warrant, and can fund. But the infrastructure isn't at the point where its ready 300+ times over for all the programs and locations night in and night out. Yes, things are moving in the right direction, but it takes a lot of time and money, and as we have seen, there is never enough of either!
Bully for the kids. Off-site broadcasting and streaming will become the norm. One has to wonder with the cord-cutting going on as JC so well noted, whether FOX/ESPN will have the money to pay their respective various contracts already in place. I expect more terminations at both ESPN and FOX.
For youngsters out there, the norm back in the day when live sports were first broadcast on black and white TV on ABC, CBS, and NBC (the 3 available channels at the time that all shut down at midnight) you had one announcer on site in the booth. No color commentator in the booth or on the field.
The typical comment between plays in a football game: 'Bears, 3rd down and 6 to go." That was it.
No replay, and no review of any play calls. No sideline interviews or post-game interviews.
Growing up in Boston, we learned the results of the college games that were played west of the Mississippi on Saturday in the newspaper on Monday morning.
Man, that's a LOT OF WORK! At least the network is moving a bit south and this will save millions.
How in the name of all that's business holy did Scott's employers allow him to spendthrift as he did? Can't college presidents read an income statement and a balance sheet?
This absence of business sense is the one thing that tempers my anger at SC/UCLA leaving. But where were the leaders of UCLA and USC while this patent rip-off was going on?
FS1 was doing this for PAC-12 football games as well. The Thursday night Utah vs. Washington State game in Pullman last fall was called remotely — and that was the game Petros Papadakis was so offended that he wasn’t told that Cam Rising wouldn’t start. I would have felt worse for Petros had he been in Pullman. But if FS1 is going to half-ass its broadcast, why should the Ute coaches or Sports info people go out of their way to help them.
Thank you for reporting on this. I do think the viewer experience is less when broadcasters are remote.
Remember last fall when fox did Utah - Washington State remote? They were completely blindsided by Cam Rising not playing due to injury. The announcers whined about it. Had they been there they might have been better prepared.
Also I remember that game because it was cold in Pullman . When they showed the announcers rubbing and blowing on their hands I don't think it was because of the air conditioning in their L.A. studio. I felt they were purposely trying to mislead the public.
If they try and hide the fact the broadcast is remote that tells me they think it is something less than being on site.
It's significant, but its not the only piece of it. Petros, popular with many, has openly stated he hates travel, and he isn't the only one (just one of the more honest about it). And given the time, cost, and some of the things that can and do go wrong, there is something to that.
There is also the issue of not being able to have top personnel do as many events, which does matter to some inside the business and some customers and investors.
The interesting thing are the hybrid crews, where play by play is on site and analysis is remote. At least there is some communications. I haven't seen that as much, but it has happened, and might be the compromise in some cases.
Maybe we could eventually have (ala Madden type advanced technology) remote players, bands, cheerleaders, fans and zoom the "cook your own burger" tailgate party. Who knows what technology could eventually produce!
I'm guilty too. I watched church online last Sunday. Think about it.....Once we remove face to face in every aspect of life, we cease to be human.
Nature abhors a vacuum John. I bet Amazon or another streaming service would find a lot of value in on site announcers. The arrogance of FOX towards our conference is astounding, maybe it's time to move on from them and choose another media partner, one that cares.
DL - I very much doubt that FOX after 'stealing' the LA schools from the conference and finding gold, although FOX took a B1G risk in doing so, will have any interest in the Pac-10.
To date, Amazon has turned to a 3rd party source to broadcast 'Herbies' NFL games.
Amazon does not have its own live sports broadcast capability. 3rd party media entities today broadcast Amazon telecasts,
I expect this could change in the very near future. There are 200M plus Amazon 'members." And the Pac-12 moving to San Ramon makes a logical connection with Amazon. And kudos to GK for the move and the savings of millions of dollars in rental fees.
I definitely relate to those ASU college announcers as I had the privilege of calling Santa Clara vs BYU basketball last night. The thrill of announcing as a college student almost leaves you speechless when all you're doing is talking incessantly.
It was so clearly terrible from the jump last night. The audio balance was way off, the announcers weren't talking with near the excitement level that announcers who are actually in the building do, and they generally rambled in a way announcers are unable to in a loud building. I switched to listening to the radio broadcast synched with my DVR midway through the first half, and that was perfectly fine aside from having to stay off twitter.
And there just can't be THAT much money saved here. Round trip tickets from LA for Jacobsen and Seattle for the PBP guy to Sky Harbor + a night in a hotel + per diem can't be much more than $2k all in. Ridiculous for any game, especially a game of that magnitude.
If they really want to save money on travel in college, and payrolls in the NBA, then basketball can be played by AI with CGI generated players with a certain skill profile. People will watch on TV and probably not know the difference. The AI will determine who wins and who loses based in myriad variables like the player skill profiles, home court advantage, fictional side-stories about player problems or motivations like a father who has just passed away or a player with a significant injury who overcomes to win the big game. The possibilities are endless. Who needs humans, anyway?!
You point out something huge.If they aren't in town, they are not getting to talk to or know anyone involved, which means, they have nothing meaningful to add for the viewers. We really don't need them! They didn't watch a practice or a shootaround or talk to coaches. I didn't like Utah' actions, but now I am100% with them. If Papadakis doesn't like to travel, they should give him a different position.
The other issue here is how "chatty"all these announcers and "analysts" are during the event. There must be a rule that anything beyond three seconds of silence from the booth is unacceptable. And a majority of the times, rather than what is going on in the game the chat is about who changed one of the players diapers when he was a baby and we have a visual on that? As sports fans who enjoy viewing the games for the contest involved (the teams sure as hell don't have anything to do with the University, other than as mercenaries playing ball). There is, unfortunately, an answer for us, while not the one we would hope for: "granting me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change". C'mon,
Spot On! Please see my take on 'the good old days.' Today, we are overwhelmed with obscure insights into the obvious. And 'this' goes well beyond sporting events.
Thank goodness for the ESPN broadcast team of Dave Pasch and Bill Walton! Pasch is solid, and very caring. Class guy. Walton Riffs were difficult to follow at first but now I have learned to just drift along and not worry about trying to connect the dots. Best broadcast team in America!
This seems so wrong. FOX, I was told, is demanding such an increase in fees, my local DISH network blacked out the games! At kick-off of Oregon's bowl game, I realized I would not have the capability to watch! I live 12 miles from Eugene, have supported the Ducks and occasionally the Beavs, for 75 years! I'm verklempt! Thanks, I feel better.
I think FOX is doing all it can to wipe out west coast football but for SC/UCLA which if nothing else will have its games broadcast on the FOX-owned B1G network.
For those of us depending on KLSR out of Eugene for Fox, the problem is not the network, it is Cox Media who owns that franchise and 8 others throughout the country. Fox has been pulled in all of those DISH markets by Cox. Each side blames the other. My take is that Cox demanded Dish viewers who were not actually paying for or receiving local channels be counted in the financial equation.
I may be in the minority here, but to me the primary value of announcers is less about narrating the event and more about providing insight on the things we aren't able to see on our screen. If the only view and sounds of the event announcers have is the exact same thing we get at home, then announcers' presence loses value to the point that they almost detract more from the event than add to it.
If FOX is all about cutting costs - and I can't imagine the cost of a couple plane tickets and a night in a hotel amounts to much in the grand scheme - then just do away with announcers altogether and pipe in the public address feed.
I would think if the conference is that unhappy about this, now would be the perfect time to address it with media rights in negotiation.
The public address feed would have to be upgraded DRAMATICALLY at a lot of events. (Not that that wouldn't be a good thing anyway!)
I can believe that, even though I seldom notice the public address on TV.
Another option would be to pipe in the radio feed of each team and let fans choose which one they want. This obviously will present hurdles in the linear TV format as far as getting distribution of two separate feeds/channels for one event, but it certainly works in theory (and ESPN does it with the CFP). And if I understand the tech side of it correctly it becomes much more feasible with streaming broadcasts.
Not more feasible with streaming. There are so many less than the best pieces to that that synching is a huge problem. Delays with streams of over a minute are not uncommon. Yes, ESPN pulls it off pretty well for a few big events, but at a considerable price that the CFP playoffs warrant, and can fund. But the infrastructure isn't at the point where its ready 300+ times over for all the programs and locations night in and night out. Yes, things are moving in the right direction, but it takes a lot of time and money, and as we have seen, there is never enough of either!
The kids had a great time!
Bully for the kids. Off-site broadcasting and streaming will become the norm. One has to wonder with the cord-cutting going on as JC so well noted, whether FOX/ESPN will have the money to pay their respective various contracts already in place. I expect more terminations at both ESPN and FOX.
For youngsters out there, the norm back in the day when live sports were first broadcast on black and white TV on ABC, CBS, and NBC (the 3 available channels at the time that all shut down at midnight) you had one announcer on site in the booth. No color commentator in the booth or on the field.
The typical comment between plays in a football game: 'Bears, 3rd down and 6 to go." That was it.
No replay, and no review of any play calls. No sideline interviews or post-game interviews.
Growing up in Boston, we learned the results of the college games that were played west of the Mississippi on Saturday in the newspaper on Monday morning.
Back to the future?
Absolutely, Jon. The games also stayed in the expected time slot, certainly not the case now.
We used to say "but it's free". Not the case for most of us who are cable enablers.
Thanks, Charles. And the games, including the World Series, were played in the daylight.
Lots of transistor radios snuck into the school to hear the games.
FS1 working hard to make the PAC12 Network look good!
Man, that's a LOT OF WORK! At least the network is moving a bit south and this will save millions.
How in the name of all that's business holy did Scott's employers allow him to spendthrift as he did? Can't college presidents read an income statement and a balance sheet?
This absence of business sense is the one thing that tempers my anger at SC/UCLA leaving. But where were the leaders of UCLA and USC while this patent rip-off was going on?
FS1 was doing this for PAC-12 football games as well. The Thursday night Utah vs. Washington State game in Pullman last fall was called remotely — and that was the game Petros Papadakis was so offended that he wasn’t told that Cam Rising wouldn’t start. I would have felt worse for Petros had he been in Pullman. But if FS1 is going to half-ass its broadcast, why should the Ute coaches or Sports info people go out of their way to help them.
Where’s Walton when you need him? Love his court side telecasts!
can't imagine Bill doing remote!
Thank you for reporting on this. I do think the viewer experience is less when broadcasters are remote.
Remember last fall when fox did Utah - Washington State remote? They were completely blindsided by Cam Rising not playing due to injury. The announcers whined about it. Had they been there they might have been better prepared.
Also I remember that game because it was cold in Pullman . When they showed the announcers rubbing and blowing on their hands I don't think it was because of the air conditioning in their L.A. studio. I felt they were purposely trying to mislead the public.
If they try and hide the fact the broadcast is remote that tells me they think it is something less than being on site.
Increasingly, sadly, college sports and our culture are about the buck.
It's significant, but its not the only piece of it. Petros, popular with many, has openly stated he hates travel, and he isn't the only one (just one of the more honest about it). And given the time, cost, and some of the things that can and do go wrong, there is something to that.
There is also the issue of not being able to have top personnel do as many events, which does matter to some inside the business and some customers and investors.
The interesting thing are the hybrid crews, where play by play is on site and analysis is remote. At least there is some communications. I haven't seen that as much, but it has happened, and might be the compromise in some cases.
The Trailblazers are doing some of this too!
Maybe we could eventually have (ala Madden type advanced technology) remote players, bands, cheerleaders, fans and zoom the "cook your own burger" tailgate party. Who knows what technology could eventually produce!
I'm guilty too. I watched church online last Sunday. Think about it.....Once we remove face to face in every aspect of life, we cease to be human.
Nature abhors a vacuum John. I bet Amazon or another streaming service would find a lot of value in on site announcers. The arrogance of FOX towards our conference is astounding, maybe it's time to move on from them and choose another media partner, one that cares.
DL - I very much doubt that FOX after 'stealing' the LA schools from the conference and finding gold, although FOX took a B1G risk in doing so, will have any interest in the Pac-10.
To date, Amazon has turned to a 3rd party source to broadcast 'Herbies' NFL games.
Amazon does not have its own live sports broadcast capability. 3rd party media entities today broadcast Amazon telecasts,
I expect this could change in the very near future. There are 200M plus Amazon 'members." And the Pac-12 moving to San Ramon makes a logical connection with Amazon. And kudos to GK for the move and the savings of millions of dollars in rental fees.
I definitely relate to those ASU college announcers as I had the privilege of calling Santa Clara vs BYU basketball last night. The thrill of announcing as a college student almost leaves you speechless when all you're doing is talking incessantly.
It was so clearly terrible from the jump last night. The audio balance was way off, the announcers weren't talking with near the excitement level that announcers who are actually in the building do, and they generally rambled in a way announcers are unable to in a loud building. I switched to listening to the radio broadcast synched with my DVR midway through the first half, and that was perfectly fine aside from having to stay off twitter.
And there just can't be THAT much money saved here. Round trip tickets from LA for Jacobsen and Seattle for the PBP guy to Sky Harbor + a night in a hotel + per diem can't be much more than $2k all in. Ridiculous for any game, especially a game of that magnitude.
I was there, and the big truck was parked outside, with all the attendant people. What % are they saving?
If they really want to save money on travel in college, and payrolls in the NBA, then basketball can be played by AI with CGI generated players with a certain skill profile. People will watch on TV and probably not know the difference. The AI will determine who wins and who loses based in myriad variables like the player skill profiles, home court advantage, fictional side-stories about player problems or motivations like a father who has just passed away or a player with a significant injury who overcomes to win the big game. The possibilities are endless. Who needs humans, anyway?!
You point out something huge.If they aren't in town, they are not getting to talk to or know anyone involved, which means, they have nothing meaningful to add for the viewers. We really don't need them! They didn't watch a practice or a shootaround or talk to coaches. I didn't like Utah' actions, but now I am100% with them. If Papadakis doesn't like to travel, they should give him a different position.
Unless helmets improve, AI games played by avatars may likely be on the way.
Perfect!
It's FOX. Always expect less.
The other issue here is how "chatty"all these announcers and "analysts" are during the event. There must be a rule that anything beyond three seconds of silence from the booth is unacceptable. And a majority of the times, rather than what is going on in the game the chat is about who changed one of the players diapers when he was a baby and we have a visual on that? As sports fans who enjoy viewing the games for the contest involved (the teams sure as hell don't have anything to do with the University, other than as mercenaries playing ball). There is, unfortunately, an answer for us, while not the one we would hope for: "granting me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change". C'mon,
Man.
Spot On! Please see my take on 'the good old days.' Today, we are overwhelmed with obscure insights into the obvious. And 'this' goes well beyond sporting events.
Thank goodness for the ESPN broadcast team of Dave Pasch and Bill Walton! Pasch is solid, and very caring. Class guy. Walton Riffs were difficult to follow at first but now I have learned to just drift along and not worry about trying to connect the dots. Best broadcast team in America!
Any feedback from Walton so far this season in regards to his Bruins going B1G?
I don't know. But I do know that John Madden always took the bus.
This seems so wrong. FOX, I was told, is demanding such an increase in fees, my local DISH network blacked out the games! At kick-off of Oregon's bowl game, I realized I would not have the capability to watch! I live 12 miles from Eugene, have supported the Ducks and occasionally the Beavs, for 75 years! I'm verklempt! Thanks, I feel better.
I think FOX is doing all it can to wipe out west coast football but for SC/UCLA which if nothing else will have its games broadcast on the FOX-owned B1G network.
For those of us depending on KLSR out of Eugene for Fox, the problem is not the network, it is Cox Media who owns that franchise and 8 others throughout the country. Fox has been pulled in all of those DISH markets by Cox. Each side blames the other. My take is that Cox demanded Dish viewers who were not actually paying for or receiving local channels be counted in the financial equation.