Time delay in ABC World Cup Coverage
Started watching the World Cup games (and don’t ask me which World Cup) from today (missed yesterday’s action due to a conference). After a while, was extremely fed up with ABC/ESPN’s coverage – the ‘play by play’ commentary is too inane, full of unnecessary jargons borrowed from American sports and too dumbed down, perhaps in an effort to target the ‘ignorant American’ audience. On top of that they had this sappy half-time feature that somehow tried to tie-in Germany’s Nazi and World War II past and their revival with the 1972 Olympics, the 1974 and this World Cup.
Anyway, finally switched to the Spanish channel, Univision – don’t understand much of what they are saying – but the inflections in their voice, especially the excitement whenever a shot is taken at the goal or someone is brought down by a heavy tackle etc, indcates that their heart is in the right place. Couple of points about the coverage. Firstly, crowd noise is more prominent in the Spanish channel – ABC mutes it down for some reason. Secondly, ABC has a 10-second delay in their coverage. What are they worried about – a waldrobe malfunction on the field ?
Btw, love the Adidas Jose + 10 ads. You can see them here and here.
I was ‘forced’ to watch today’s Mexico-Iran game on Univision simply because our local ABC station was not showing the game (WTF?). But I agree, the enthu voices of the Spanish commentators made up for not understanding one bit (except for random names). But this commentator didn’t prolong the Goooooooaal..instead did it in spurts…Gooool….Gooool….Goool…weird.
Patrix
June 11, 2006 at 5:55 pm
@Patrix: Interesting – but not too suprising. Back in 2002, I was in Rochester, NY and the local ABC sation decided not to show the World Cup FINALS !!! This in a city that has a healthy following of soccer with the most important sporting franchise being the minor-league soccer team, the Rhinos.
Perhaps the ABC station in Texas was making a stand against Mexico (immigration) and Iran (nukes and whole nine yards)
BongoP'o'ndit
June 11, 2006 at 6:09 pm
Pondit – they actually put it on ABC at halftime in 2002, which makes less sense than not showing it at all.
I’m stuck with the crappy Disney announcers, since they are in high-def. My favorite was during the Argentina/Ivory Coast game, when one of the commentators said that the game had taken a 360° turn, which was sort of appropriate given that Argentina was still up 2-1.
Brian
June 12, 2006 at 11:05 am
hey, i’m also in Roc. NY. I had to watch th game on the spanish channel too. I wish ABC would broadcast more of hte game. who cares about soaps and golf.
sabrina
June 12, 2006 at 1:34 pm
Oh, at last! Finally, I have found a group of anti-ESPNers. Honestly, ESPN commentary has to be the most obviously biased, insipid, elitist trash that e’er I heard. I too have been brushing up on my Spanish by watching the games on the Spanish channels. At least there are no dumb condescending remarks towards the other teams.
kys
June 16, 2006 at 6:21 pm