Poor Naismith (Fox Sports)

[SerenityNigh]

re: the concern of English coverage being "americanized" ... I've never thought the coverage Sky Sports does is anything but banal garbage anyway. I guess it's more familiar banal garbage and less "teeth-whiteney" than what the US does but really it's just a slightly different tasting pile of crap.

I'm not a huge fan of it now but shows like PTI are a small step above any sports talk they had in England last time I was there.

Are there any good shows? TalkSport could be the subject of a thesis entitled "How TalkSport explains every single problem in modern society."

I always found Soccer AM to be violently disagreeable. MOTD has some well-documented issues.

Fantasy Football League back in the day? Now that I did enjoy at the time.

I'll admit the UK commentators are better than (most of) the US (although the ex-coaches who commentate in the NFL ... when the networks actually let them break down the plays ... that's not bad). So for in-game stuff I'd agree with siding with UK style coverage (and NBC agrees with that too).

The rest of the coverage I have never enjoyed in either the UK or the US. Very LCD. Aside from late breaking injury news and who is playing there is really nothing of value going on anyway.

If a bunch of fireworks were shooting off while some tart dances about and sings some horrible song that's really no different to me* than a bunch of sour-faced ex-RS sitting around a table with their big club bias talking about how they rate Cole above Baines.

No different in the sense that I have zero interest in watching either. They are obviously in a literal sense very different scenarios.

Now if you combined the UK and US style of coverage and Alan Hansen had to dance around in hot-pants singing a song about all his rowdy friends ... I think we can all agree that would be the best of both worlds.

The problem with most sports shows is that they reside at the extremes. Many shows take the approach of "The Crowd Goes Wild" and requires the watcher to have zero knowledge. Unsurprisingly, these shows have zero content. Other shows (PTI being my favorite among TV broadcast) require a certain baseline knowledge to understand the shows; even more to understand the jokes. There aren't many great single-sport shows, but generally speaking ESPN's Baseball Tonight is the best. But that in part stems from the calm, patient, and more intellectual form of baseball compared to the rabid, feverish, and violent approach American football requires. How cerebral can NFL coverage be?

Back on topic: Georgie Thompson is best viewed with the sound off; Regis Philbin is a great sports fan, but I'm not sure he knows how to host a sports show; if you had any IQ before you turned on Fox Sports 1, it is degraded by the minute until you switch the channel.

 

[johnnydawg68]

There are too many Americans that think it has to be a choice between soccer and football, and given football's popularity over here not too many will make that choice. I'm one of the few who loves both for the totally different experiences they provide.

This ^^^^

 

[johnnydawg68]

The problem with most sports shows is that they reside at the extremes. Many shows take the approach of "The Crowd Goes Wild" and requires the watcher to have zero knowledge. Unsurprisingly, these shows have zero content. Other shows (PTI being my favorite among TV broadcast) require a certain baseline knowledge to understand the shows; even more to understand the jokes. There aren't many great single-sport shows, but generally speaking ESPN's Baseball Tonight is the best. But that in part stems from the calm, patient, and more intellectual form of baseball compared to the rabid, feverish, and violent approach American football requires. How cerebral can NFL coverage be?

Back on topic: Georgie Thompson is best viewed with the sound off; Regis Philbin is a great sports fan, but I'm not sure he knows how to host a sports show; if you had any IQ before you turned on Fox Sports 1, it is degraded by the minute until you switch the channel.

Honestly I don't watch much sports programming other than the actual games. They're all fluff, and they only really concentrate on who's on top at the moment anyway. I don't ever learn anything new, and they're terrible at "entertainment" so I just swerve them, even the American football ones.

Just let me watch the games.

 

[SerenityNigh]

Honestly I don't watch much sports programming other than the actual games. They're all fluff, and they only really concentrate on who's on top at the moment anyway. I don't ever learn anything new, and they're terrible at "entertainment" so I just swerve them, even the American football ones.

Just let me watch the games.

To be fair, all mine is podcasting at work: PTI, MenInBlazers, The Guardian Football Weekly, Tony Kornheiser...

I suppose radio is a medium that requires more content than TV, so maybe my consumption is biased

 

[johnnydawg68]

To be fair, all mine is podcasting at work: PTI, MenInBlazers, The Guardian Football Weekly, Tony Kornheiser...

I suppose radio is a medium that requires more content than TV, so maybe my consumption is biased

Podcasts are definitely better.

 

[lukecrossland]

I hope that someone sends this to Naismith. He should then do a copy but with her.
Who the f*** does she think she is. Only did this in the states as she wouldnt get away with it in the UK

 

[bluelife]

Relentless that! You'd never hear an actual station calling a footballer 'crap' or generally undermining him in the UK, poor Stevie!

 

[EFC NY]

I think we'll be surprised how big it gets here. Just the introduction of the EPL here with NBC has already added a huge amount of fans. Not to mention, MLS is expanding with 4 more teams.

While it will never be the level of NFL, I could easily see it rivaling hockey or even baseball in 10 years time. It can never be huge because it can't be commercialized like NFL, which seems like it has about 3 minutes of actual gameplay, and about 4 hours of commercials. Don't get me wrong, I like NFL also. (Niners fan)

But yeah, I think Americans would become unbearable to Europeans (even more so) if somehow the USMNT managed to win the world cup one year. (Not that that could happen).

I need some of what you are smoking. There is no way the EPL will be as big as baseball, or even hockey, in 10 years. No way. Not even close. And I really don't see the huge increase in fans with the move to NBC. As far as I can tell, if you watched it on Fox/ESPN, you now watch it on NBC, but if you didn't then, you don't now. I don't know one person who is now a EPL fan due to the switch to NBC.

But the EPL need not approach football/baseball/basketball/hockey to be successful in the states. its demographics are good (which helps drive revenue), and it does, and will, generate profits for the network, and by extension, the 20 clubs in the league.

 

[themagmaman]

I need some of what you are smoking. There is no way the EPL will be as big as baseball, or even hockey, in 10 years. No way. Not even close. And I really don't see the huge increase in fans with the move to NBC. As far as I can tell, if you watched it on Fox/ESPN, you now watch it on NBC, but if you didn't then, you don't now. I don't know one person who is now a EPL fan due to the switch to NBC.

But the EPL need not approach football/baseball/basketball/hockey to be successful in the states. its demographics are good (which helps drive revenue), and it does, and will, generate profits for the network, and by extension, the 20 clubs in the league.

I didn't mean just the EPL. I meant soccer in general. Whether its MLS or EPL.

Also, every sports show has now integrated soccer into it (Literally, the one we are talking about in this thread is one of them). I'm not sure where you are living, but already around me many new supporter clubs have recently started with "new" soccer fans of the EPL, and MLS. Heck, just where I work people talk about soccer almost as much as football. It wasn't like that pre-NBC.

I even have a friend that hates sports. HATES them all. Baseball, basketball, etc. Guess what? Loves EPL suddenly. Maybe I'm just from a sports oriented part of the county, but even randoms on my facebook account have randomly started posting messages about it. (Ohio)

 

[themagmaman]

Especially considering how boring and dull baseball is, it's only a matter of time before it drops out of the "big 4" in the US and is replaced with something. Hockey is always hanging on, but never really gaining in popularity, sadly. I don't see it getting any less popular. There is a giant gap between NFL and the other sports, and there is no reason soccer (football) couldn't plow it's way into it. (ESPN doesn't show a lot of soccer stuff because ESPN is biased based on who happens to be writing them fat checks.)

 

[royalblue66]

Hope the advertisers don't get the playing time changed to 4 quarters.

 

[njligernj]

I need some of what you are smoking. There is no way the EPL will be as big as baseball, or even hockey, in 10 years. No way. Not even close.

::warning:: ... following message contains us of "EPL" .... mainly just to irritate people.

Well ... TV ratings aren't everything but the games on NBC are at around a 0.8 rating. NHL games averaged a 0.5 last year although that's slightly misleading since most of them are on cable.

In fact that's a fairly interesting fact: if NBC shows the same number of NHL games on the big network this year as it did last year (15) it will mean that NBC is airing EPL more often than NHL games (on the main network). That's a fairly big deal.

However many years ago it was when Bettman was first put in charge of the NHL (with a mission to destroy it), if you told someone then that NBC would show English soccer more often than the NHL ... people would have thought you were completely insane. However that is our reality now. And hockey was UP big in the ratings last year ... if we used 2011 numbers the EPL would practically be winning ratings out of the gate.

When shown on main NBC network the NHL got a 1.5 last year (not sure if that includes some playoff games which you could argue aren't a fair comparison to just a regular weekly EPL game). Now hockey games air at a slightly better time than EPL games so you'd expect them to have a higher number too. (Matter of fact it's not just hockey that is close to EPL ratings: the first MLB game of the year only managed a 1.5.)

Anyway it isn't remotely impossible to imagine EPL getting better ratings than hockey. That said in terms of money spent, the NHL does generally manage to rustle up 15-20k people to show up to games and spend money. The EPL will just be selling merchandise. So in terms of dollars spent, without local teams, it would be impossible to compete on that front.

 

[themagmaman]

http://espnfc.com/blog/_/name/relegationzone/id/262?cc=5901

Interesting article on the subject we have derailed to.

 

[Minimeister]

The American football coverage, namely 'Redzone' is one of the best ideas ever. No adverts and just non stop action.

 

[themagmaman]

This quote in particular:

"...recently pronounced soccer as America's second-most popular sport for those age 12-24, outstripping the NBA, MLB and college football."

http://sportspath.typepad.com/files/soccer-popularity-continues-to-climb.pdf