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Post by zenyada on Dec 19, 2014 11:17:46 GMT -5
During the evenings first match they lost almost an entire play because they were showing old pictures of Sean Olmstead for who knows what reason it was ridiculous. Two: 1) He won national coach of the year that day (and refreshingly was secure enough to give credit where credit is due in acknowledging the importance of his sister's role.) 2) They're smart in humanizing the game for the average user,it's good business. I find volleyball viewing a great family alternative to pro-sports and wife beater stories. There's a niche market here to grow, but the new and casual fan doesn't know or care about the difference in serving styles or each and every point of say 200 points. For me, it was relieving to have what felt like a fast paced game and telecast, not bogged down by all the substitutions and explanations of who's coming in for who (oh, along with the other person who's coming onto the court....no wait a minute...how sweet, she just came over to give her friend a high five and now she's going to sit down again and think about playing later) In a way, we're in a sweet spot. I got a kick out of the picture of KK holding Sean with Hanley? Sorta of roots thing I guess. As an aside, the next phase is klunky TV timeouts (mens college basketball has the under 5, 10,15 minute tv time outs, a couple of 60 second time outs for each team and a couple of 30's, disrupting the flow of play and making attending games less interesting. At least at home you can clean it up with the tivo. TC's right they're this close. Very little to tweak. Just keep on points late in each game.
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Post by ugopher on Dec 19, 2014 11:21:06 GMT -5
Here is my take as someone, albeit an amateur, has done some TV announcing before.
It is tough to add color to a match given the lack of down time between points. If you stick to just who is serving, digging, setting, and hitting, people will call it boring and that we want to hear more about the players' back stories.
To get more replays without missing a serve, there will need to be more time between serves. I do think they stopped play for a few seconds last night allow a replay. But, does that affect the flow of the match?
If VB is going to draw in more casual fans to VB announcers are going to have to speak to the casual fan. I agree that they don't have to harp on the best 3 of 5, who/what the libero is, rally vs. side-out scoring, etc. (they can work that in during the contest vs. doing it the way they do); having to lay out the basic rules before the match to the viewer makes VB sound like a new, niche sport vs. a long time, very popular sport. But a casual observer may be more interested in hearing about Gray's story vs. the fact that a set is a little to far off the net. Or, listening to the announcer tell you what you are seeing.
Overall, it's a fine line between talking down to viewers and educating viewers. I thought Karch did a fine of job of explaining some nuances without getting overly technical. As the thread title states, we are getting closer! If only we could have two broadcasts like they did for baseball - one showing the live action and one which discusses live what is happening on the court in a little more depth.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2014 11:25:06 GMT -5
I agree with ugopher. A strict play-to-play is boring. And this isn't radio. We can SEE what's happening.
But the point is they need to recognize the limits of their visual. We can't always see all we need to see. And that's where graphics would really help. Baseball would never send a batter to the plate with no info about him on the screen. But VB does it all the time. We almost never know what rotations teams are in. For PSU, just for instance, it's VERY important to know when Micha will be serving again.
Who's in the front row. Who's coming around. Basic info.
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Post by tomclen on Dec 19, 2014 12:28:20 GMT -5
If you analyze a really good football or baseball TV broadcast, you'll realize how little is actually said compared to a volleyball broadcast.
How often have you seen the final play of a football game where the game is on the line, and once the ball is snapped the announcers say NOTHING. They allow the visual to carry the moment.
If you watch the Hawaii TV broadcasts, you'll see the same thing. The announcers ADD to what you see on the screen. They are not a distraction. And sometimes, the best way to enhance what's on the screen is to say nothing.
Having an announcer SCREEECH a players name when they go up for a kill or yell UH-OHHHH when he/she thinks there's about to be a big block adds NOTHING to the broadcast.
Can you imagine watching the Seahawks and Broncos in the Super Bowl and have have Troy Aikman talk thru three straight plays about what it was like playing with Emmett Smith or spending 2 1/2 minutes talking about Jimmy Johnson's coaching strategy? Yet, that is what we get in Volleyball.
It does nothing to enhance the experience for new viewers who might know little about volleyball and it insults the intelligence of viewers who know a fair amount about the sport.
Say less. Try to cram in less. Focus on the action. Add to what we can see, and explain what we can't see.
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Post by jagdpanther on Dec 19, 2014 12:35:04 GMT -5
During the evenings first match they lost almost an entire play because they were showing old pictures of Sean Olmstead for who knows what reason it was ridiculous. I, for one, thought that was hilarious. Expect to see it again on Saturday.
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Post by tomclen on Dec 19, 2014 12:41:58 GMT -5
During the evenings first match they lost almost an entire play because they were showing old pictures of Sean Olmstead for who knows what reason it was ridiculous. I, for one, thought that was hilarious. Expect to see it again on Saturday. It's a cute human interest story, but can you imagine the outrage if CBS missed a super bowl play because they were showing a photo of John Fox's sideburns? They wouldn't do that, of course, because that is considered incompetent.
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Post by ncaavballguru on Dec 19, 2014 13:04:24 GMT -5
If you want TV broadcasts of volleyball to be more engaging, you have to choose a broadcast team that is more engaging. Mowins and Kiraly are just not engaging.
John Madden is engaging. Vin Scully is engaging. Howard Cosell was engaging.
Where are the engaging volleyball broadcasters. It seems like every broadcaster from Mowins to Kiraly to Sunderland to Barnett feels that we need to "educate" the audience to volleyball. Just call the friggin' game and highlight the exciting parts of it. You don't need to explain the rules unless something out-of-the ordinary happens or if there is a break in play to discuss a ruling. That's what all the major sports be it MLB, NBA, or the NFL do.
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Post by uscyaaa on Dec 19, 2014 13:07:29 GMT -5
A lot of us on here know what a great sport volleyball is (and can be with more promotion)...but the key is something that has always plagued the sport. It's a matter of administrators realizing that women's volleyball can be a flagship sport and not just women's basketball. Once you get more and more broadcasters that understand volleyball, then you will be able to see a seismic shift in television. It's not going to happen overnight, but at least with the new networks (SEC, Big Ten, Pac-12...etc), it can happen once the base gets expanded.
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Post by zenyada on Dec 19, 2014 14:17:01 GMT -5
If you want TV broadcasts of volleyball to be more engaging, you have to choose a broadcast team that is more engaging. Mowins and Kiraly are just not engaging. John Madden is engaging. Vin Scully is engaging. Howard Cosell was engaging. Where are the engaging volleyball broadcasters. It seems like every broadcaster from Mowins to Kiraly to Sunderland to Barnett feels that we need to "educate" the audience to volleyball. Just call the friggin' game and highlight the exciting parts of it. You don't need to explain the rules unless something out-of-the ordinary happens or if there is a break in play to discuss a ruling. That's what all the major sports be it MLB, NBA, or the NFL do. Once again...Kathy Gregory: Personality, relatable, credible, and energetic. Can close the sand-indoor confusion gap for the consumer. Proper pairing contrast would be key, and that would be Sundy or Barnett. No, not related, not of friend, and no financial interest. However, to TomClen's point, she would need to pursue coursework in the art of silence. She's the only personality in the sport that approaches the Vitale, Madden, Cosell, Gruden level of being able to define their sport. Maybe Karch in the "booth" to add world perspective.
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Post by abacaxi on Dec 19, 2014 14:29:50 GMT -5
I agree with tomclem. We don't need a description of what we can see. I attend the Wahine matches and then watch the replays when I get home, so that means I'm biased when I say that the TV crew which covers them do a great job. They're good because they do it often, not just for three or four matches in a season. My simplistic suggestion: Hire the commentator and camera crews which cover the Wahine volleyball matches for the final weekend.
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Post by canda on Dec 19, 2014 19:08:49 GMT -5
I think everyone is missing one important point that made this year's Volleyball Semi-Finals coverage worse than last year.
I seem to remember that after the first game last year, we spent time before the second match going to a set where there two commentators who were discussing volleyball, i.e., the previous match, AND the upcoming match. This year, after the BYU-Texas match, we simply went to a sports center broadcast on everything going on in sports Thursday night. In fact, if anyone tuned in at 9:30 thinking they were going to see a Stanford-Penn State Volleyball Match, they must have been thoroughly confused. There was no match, there was no explanation that the first match went long and we were waiting until 9:47 to start the second match. A portion of those people probably moved on to something else.
In between games would have been the perfect time to see some of those great sets that led up to the kills in the Texas-BYU match, and to preview the Penn State-Stanford match, bringing up the history, the rivalry, the interesting personalities. Instead, we got nothing.
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Post by gnu2vball on Dec 19, 2014 22:46:00 GMT -5
Aside from issues about the game coverage, I was creeped-out by a couple of the advertisements. First off, I must confess that I don't know if the ads are nationwide or whether they can be regionalized--I have DirecTV.
Before the broadcast began, I saw two straight ads for dating sites. One was for something called "Anastasia" for Russian women? The other was for Asian dating--at least more straight forward--no less creepy.
Then, there were a couple ads for "farmersonly.com" See those a lot on B1G volleyball coverage.
I know advertisers pay a lot of attention to audience demographics.
I'm not sure what this says about us.....
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Post by Deleted on Dec 19, 2014 22:55:46 GMT -5
It's where I met Old McDonald. Not only is he a sweet guy, he has a cow, a duck, a dog, a donkey ... oh hell, you name it, he's got it.
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Post by kro2488 on Dec 20, 2014 0:19:36 GMT -5
Just stick two former players together like Karch and Holly etc, would make it alot better. They always have to have the ESPN person there and they have to blabber alot, which in turn makes Karch or the expert have to blabber in turn,and sometimes if they say something really dumb they just kinda sit there in stunned silence or loathing for a few seconds so you get dead air. Beth Mowins does better than alot of them though, Sam Gore has said some really, really, stupid things before.
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Post by tomclen on Dec 20, 2014 3:25:23 GMT -5
You can sort of skirt your way around the unfocused, non-match related blathering by turning the sound down and trying to focus on the noise of the crowd and the court (or just mute), but there's no at-home workaround for missed serves.
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