A little crispy one Garry - The footy media thread

[theDJR]

In the late eighties all Sydney games got the full treatment. As a result ESPN in the USA used them waaaaaay too often as their game of the week.

[Donslaught9]

This is a great little channel where its owner is posting every Channel 7 Saturday Night highlights show from the era (complete with the commercials from the time). They generally post one or two a week and it starts in 1983 if you scan back. They are currently up to Round 10 1990.

aussie80s

There are some amazing Essendon highlights in these videos that you won’t find in a YouTube search.

[simmo41]

@somo84

Legit wondering - how does the performance of a good commentator suffer if they aren’t at the match?

lots of mistakes - wrong names, etc. most obvious one i’ve noticed in footy is misreading shots on goal, especially for interstate games when there’s no significant crowd reaction to help judge the outcome

very little strategic insight available. eg: can’t observe individual matchups or changes in defence setup. leads to a lot more “filler” chat about irrelevant sht (player facts, past games, stories not connected to the current game)

there’s probably something in psychology that explains this better than i can articulate, but there’s no “feel” for the momentum of a game because you can’t see body language of the players, or react to the crowd energy. best example of this i always refer to is bruce mcaveney’s call of cathy freeman’s 400m win. the intensity of his voice matches that of the crowd’s noise around him. again this leads to more “filler” chat that doesn’t add anything

[bigallan]

There was an uproar in the ACT at only getting Sydney games. One day it got so noisy that it switched to an Essendon Carlton game after the first quarter.
But then, getting the ads from the Sydney feed, we once missed 3 goals as they piled on the ads, sometimes in anticipation of a goal.

[simmo41]

just further to my post above, here’s three different looks at the cathy freeman win in 2000

no commentary:

Cathy Freeman Wins 400m Gold - Sydney 2000 Olympics

bruce:

Cathy Freeman 400m Sydney Olympics with Bruce McAvaney commentating.

which one got your heart rate going more?

now listen to the nbc (american) comms. they were there in the stadium, and had only the mildest of understanding of the significance of this race compared to bruce.

Cathy Freeman's race as commentated by American Network NBC.

discussion topic for the class: do you think the nbc call would have gone the way it did if they weren’t in the stadium as it happened?

-edit- before someone else brings it up, here’s tim lane going full send

Sydney 2000 Women's 400 metre final (ABC Call) Cathy Freeman

[fish_bowl]

Based on kings language in the article posted above, sounds like it’s a cost cutting measure. Reading between the lines he isn’t happy about it

[barnz]

@Chris_1993

They could hire commentators who live in each state. Gets rid of that issue

or, they could just hire professional commentators and bin every former player, save some dollars and have a product worth watching

[fish_bowl]

Don’t think the talent pool supports that! Although I’d support Kelly being farmed off to QLD so I can ignore her like I ignore joe

[barnz]

@simmo41

discussion topic for the class: do you think the nbc call would have gone the way it did if they weren’t in the stadium as it happened?

tbf that was an enlightened period for america, they didn’t whinge at all about an american not winning it.

[Saucy]

If the commentators don’t want to travel, and want to be with their families, then they don’t get to have the job. Simple. Bye-bye.

[barnz]

Imagine being a state performer and working from home.

[Henry_s_Angry_Pills]

To be fair, it sounds like they have 2 or 3 TVs.

[redbull]

@somo84

Legit wondering - how does the performance of a good commentator suffer if they aren’t at the match?

Why would I need a commentator telling me what I can see myself? Surely the purpose of a tv commentator is to share knowledge beyond what you see on tv. If they can’t see what’s happening around the ground their performance suffers.

[somo84]

Good point. Hard to imagine good commentary when all we’ve had is stuttering fools that cannot articulate nor adequately capture the moment.

[bigallan]

Maybe they have access to camera angles for the whole ground , which aren’t shown to us?

[SeventeenthFlag]

Big difference in remuneration for someone travelling on the Seymour line for 80 minutes to work a call centre role paying $60k p/a, compared to these tv Kent’s getting frequent flyer points up the ying Yang and hundreds of thousands of dollars to have 5-6 months off each season and not work 5-6 day weeks.

Plenty of time to see your family during the off-season.

[redbull]

Even if they do they aren’t using them as well as they could. I have seen several times when players have been called incorrectly - because they are out of screenshot or goals that have been miss called because of the angle. Both things that would not be an issue if they were at the ground.

[SiMFiR]

Kelly says hello!

[redbull]

To be far to Kelly she was calling from a studio which didn’t have a scoreboard showing the team names.

[mdso]

Obviously, she had better taste than him. Her life is her own business, not his.
He obviously fancies himself bigtime.