/rant How much does ESPN suck? - TranceAddict Forums

TranceAddict Forums (www.tranceaddict.com/forums)
- UEFA Euro 2008
-- /rant How much does ESPN suck?

Posted by PatMcGroin on Jun-26-2008 01:17:

/rant How much does ESPN suck?

I was really shocked at how badly ESPN handled the "technical difficulties" that affected the Euro2008 broadcast today. They went to bullshit ass commentary from inside the studio, showing highlights of the past goals from the game, and not even keeping us updated on the score in the game for the first 5 full minutes! And even when it happened the second time, they were even more ill prepared!

After reading this which someone posted on another forum I got quite irritated... why wouldn't ESPN do something like this? Oh! Because they suck ass!

quote:
From what I've read in the In game chat section it seems the BBC did well to minimise the affects of broadcast blackouts - the Broadcast Centre in Vienna was affected by weather - compared to other networks showing the game as the BBC quickly picked up an alternate feed. Approx' 5 mins of the second half is missing from the BBC coverage, when it did occur they quickly went to Radio 5 Live commentary to fill the gap before changing to the alternate feed.

Where was this other feed that apparently the entire world had access to and not ESPN... for fucks sake.

And I used to LOVE ESPN! I watch Sportscenter on a daily basis, as well as some other shows, and love their coverage of most sports. But yea, obviously not "soccer" as they call it. Am I really surprised that their coverage of "soccer" sucks? No. Of course I'm not. But it does bother me that they couldn't access this other feed. Or have some kind of play-by-play going.

/rant

Posted by verndogs on Jun-26-2008 01:50:

That's because Derek Rae and Andy Gray are doing the games at ESPN headquarters. They couldn't really comment on anything because they needed the feed too.

I thought ESPN handled it well for the most part. It's not everyday this happens.

The downside is that we were subjected to more Julie Foudy

Posted by PatMcGroin on Jun-26-2008 02:02:

quote:
Originally posted by verndogs
That's because Derek Rae and Andy Gray are doing the games at ESPN headquarters. They couldn't really comment on anything because they needed the feed too.

I thought ESPN handled it well for the most part. It's not everyday this happens.

The downside is that we were subjected to more Julie Foudy

lol yea when i saw her instead of the game i wanted to break my tv.

still they could of gotten a feed from somewhere else... anywhere...

Posted by verndogs on Jun-26-2008 02:08:

quote:
Originally posted by PatMcGroin
lol yea when i saw her instead of the game i wanted to break my tv.

still they could of gotten a feed from somewhere else... anywhere...

Aside from Swiss TV or Al-Jazeera (?!?!), everyone else in the world was affected.

Posted by bas on Jun-26-2008 02:35:

quote:
Originally posted by verndogs
Aside from Swiss TV or Al-Jazeera (?!?!), everyone else in the world was affected.

Yeah. Lightning storms affected the global broadcast

Posted by PatMcGroin on Jun-26-2008 02:54:

i know everyone was affected, but i still think espn did a shitty job keeping us updated on the score while this was going on.

Posted by malek on Jun-26-2008 03:15:

TSN knew the score right away while waiting for the feed back to come back... i don't know where they got the score since the uefa website wasn't updated that fast.

Posted by verndogs on Jun-26-2008 04:18:

yeah...ESPN updated right away when they found out the score.

Posted by denys envy on Jun-26-2008 04:44:

were they ill-prepared? yeah. but no one expects this shit to happen all the time. i'd say they did pretty well on the fly - though obviously the product wasn't what people tuned in were looking for. can't blame them for the tech difficulties.

i think the biggest problem was that this is the semifinals of Euros - not some shitty US - Barbados qualifier or something like that. it goes to show how seriously ESPN takes their asso coverage. i bet if it was the playoffs in the NFL they'd turn their satellite around and align it with the stadium and zoom in and broadcast that... probably show off too "look we can zoom in on Tom Brady's nosehair from space!!"

Posted by verndogs on Jun-26-2008 05:08:

Considering how awful ESPN's world cup coverage was in 2006, they've made huge strides and it has shown with their pretty impressive coverage of Euro 2008.

ok...that huge strides were hiring Andy Gray and pairing him with Derek Rae

Posted by bas on Jun-26-2008 05:51:

quote:
Originally posted by denys envy
were they ill-prepared? yeah. but no one expects this shit to happen all the time. i'd say they did pretty well on the fly - though obviously the product wasn't what people tuned in were looking for. can't blame them for the tech difficulties.

i think the biggest problem was that this is the semifinals of Euros - not some shitty US - Barbados qualifier or something like that. it goes to show how seriously ESPN takes their asso coverage. i bet if it was the playoffs in the NFL they'd turn their satellite around and align it with the stadium and zoom in and broadcast that... probably show off too "look we can zoom in on Tom Brady's nosehair from space!!"

They're sort of limited by the number of TV antennae the host country has that can broadcast to another country. Of course if it was in the US it would be a different story

Posted by TranceGiant on Jun-26-2008 08:35:

Vienna suffered from major thunderstoms last night, hence the broadcast collapse (due to UEFA license, the EURO broadcast must come exlusively from the Vienna headquarter).

Posted by noikeee on Jun-26-2008 10:52:

Over here we only lost those 5 minutes in the middle of second half, the picture was back for the rest of the game. We saw all the goals live.

Posted by denys envy on Jun-26-2008 13:32:

quote:
Originally posted by noikeee
Over here we only lost those 5 minutes in the middle of second half, the picture was back for the rest of the game. We saw all the goals live.

yeah i caught the 2nd half replay online later. so i'm not bitching and moaning. i guess i'd be pretty pissed if i missed 2 of the 2nd half goals (like my dad and his friends at a bar).

Posted by verndogs on Jun-26-2008 14:28:

quote:
Originally posted by TranceGiant
(due to UEFA license, the EURO broadcast must come exlusively from the Vienna headquarter).

/focuses gripe there

Posted by Intuition on Jun-28-2008 22:31:

quote:
Originally posted by verndogs
ok...that huge strides were hiring Andy Gray and pairing him with Derek Rae

That's weird, cause the feed we get on TSN still has Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth, with Andy Gray on the panel with some random douche and Julie Foudy.

The Rae/Smyth pairing has been classic in ESPN's coverage of Champions League since JP Dellacamara was with Smyth until the early 2000s.