From: clc5q@hemlock.cs.Virginia.EDU (Clark L. Coleman)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis
Subject: Re: US Open - General Observations
Date: 11 Sep 92 16:41:21 GMT
Organization: University of Virginia Computer Science Department

In article <1992Sep10.211612.29861@news2.cis.umn.edu> Anne Bilek <anne@boombox.micro.umn.edu> writes:
>In article <1992Sep10.151021.1328@murdoch.acc.Virginia.EDU> Clark L.
>Coleman, clc5q@hemlock.cs.Virginia.EDU writes:
>
>>In article <18nj0cINNh4@usenet.INS.CWRU.Edu>
>ananth@universe.som.cwru.edu 
>>(Ananth Srinivasan) writes:
>>>After the Courier-Agassi encounter last night, the jokers
>>>have exited and now we can watch some real tennis! It
>>>should be a great Saturday/Sunday of tennis.
>>
>>Amen. The people who aren't really tennis fans can probably turn off
>their
>>TV sets and the rest of us can enjoy it.
>
>Yeah, don't you hate it when people who have only a passing interest in
>the sport watch it?  I know the fact that mere neophytes are watching
>detracts from my enjoyment of the sport!

It detracts from your enjoyment, but you may not realize it. Have you
seen all the complaints on this newsgroup over the years about how the
TV broadcasts almost never show doubles matches? Why do you suppose that
is --- are the TV networks stupid?

No, they know who the audience is.  In addition to the hard core fans
like myself, there are many people who play occasionally and only watch
occasionally.  Then there is even a larger group: people who never play
at all, and watch once or twice a year.  I suspect you fall into the
second group, not the third group, and you have misinterpreted what I
was saying.

I personally know of many people who watch Wimbledon and/or the U.S. Open
who don't even play tennis once a year.  These people don't want to see
tips about how to hit a backhand or a drop shot. They don't care about
doubles, either.  And they really don't want to invest the time in
watching tennis matches between two up and coming players who are not yet
famous.  Having talked to many such people, I know this for a fact, and
I don't criticize them for it.  If they aren't big tennis fans, well, I
am not a big fan of certain other sports. No big deal.

The big deal, however, is that the TV program directors think they must
appeal to the lowest common denominator of their audience.  I think they
are wrong, and the nonplaying fan could tolerate a few tennis tips (like
we used to get from Vic Braden and others) because they don't last very
long.  I reject the idea that you must only broadcast things that appeal
to close to 100% of the audience, but there are obviously TV programmers
who accept that idea.

When you watch a smaller tournament, you see old Fred Stolle giving tennis
tips and showing you up close what is different about the shots of various
players.  This is on ESPN, however, not the major networks. He will say,
"Here is the funny backhand grip that so and so plays with, and I'll show
you why that makes it hard for him/her to hit a topspin lob, etc."  This
is fairly elementary stuff, but I find it interesting. I am definitely NOT
criticizing this kind of cameo. I am saying that we don't see it, because
that air time has been devoted to something like a film of Monica Seles
getting a new hairdo, or someone eating strawberries and cream, or a
story on the similarities between Seles and Madonna, or whatever.

I have played one set of tennis against an adult all summer.  The rest of
my court time has been spent teaching my 3 year old son how to hit a tennis
ball with a little racquetball racquet.  I play with an ancient Wilson T5000,
and don't plan on spending $200 bucks for my dream racquet because it isn't
that important to me.  I am NOT criticizing the person who only plays tennis
every once in a while ---  I'm one of them.  I wish the TV coverage were
oriented towards us and not filled with fluff.  And I think most players
of tennis ARE interested in the occasional match involving two players who
are not famous.  Showing Monica win 6-0, 6-1 in the first round sounds more
like star watching than tennis watching to me.

I believe that complaints about the fluff on TV, the mistakes made by
announcers, the lack of doubles coverage, limiting coverage to famous
players, etc., have all been made here by many posters before me.  But
because some people saw the phrase "casual fans" and mistakenly thought
I was talking about them, people started getting overreactive and defensive.
No one blasted the people who wanted more doubles coverage as tennis snobs,
because they presented their case as if it were all a terrible mystery why
the TV networks didn't show this.  I point out the reason, and I am a snob.
I think that most people who play casually have some experience in doubles
and mixed doubles (indeed, these seem more popular on the public courts AND
in country clubs than singles) and would appreciate a 5 set struggle between
Stich/McEnroe and Casals/Sanchez, or at least a couple of hours selected from
it.  But people who don't even play once a year DO NOT want to see doubles,
period, unless you have something bizarre to show them (Connors and McEnroe
teaming up against Borg and Edberg, say.)

Sorry I took a stab at explaining the obvious motivation for TV programming.
I guess we should all just complain in ignorance and pretend to have no
idea why they showed more segments about strawberries and cream in two weeks
of Wimbledon coverage than they showed of mixed doubles (did they even show
match point of the mixed doubles final?)  I think they showed what the TV
audience wanted to see, but not what r.s.t newsgroup readers wanted to see,
and told it like it is.

>........................................  It also bugs me that public
>courts exist, because then people who are don't really know anything
>about advanced stroke production, strategy and the rich history and
>tradition of the game are ACTUALLY ALLOWED TO PLAY.

I have no idea what you are talking about.  All of my play has been on
public courts, with rare exceptions.

>>
>>A general comment about TV sports.  The audience for big events tends to
>be
>>composed largely of very casual fans who outnumber the serious,
>knowledgeable
>>fans.  For example, I am bored to death by baseball until the playoffs
>come,
>>and might not even watch until the World Series.  When the World Series
>is
>>broadcast, ignorant fans like myself are probably in the majority. The
>hard
>>core baseball fan who has memorized a million statistics is probably
>quite
>>frustrated upon hearing the announcers explain elementary aspects of the
>game,
>>or explain that Joe Blow, who is now coming up to bat, was acquired in a
>trade
>>from the Tigers just 2 months ago, etc.  He knows all that, and it
>reminds
>>him that the telecast is not really oriented towards him.  When the
>casual fans
>>cast votes for All-Star teams in any sport, they frustrate serious fans
>by
>>voting in droves for fat old has-beens who can't play any more.
>>
>Excuse me, but I would prefer that the announcers cater to the casual
>viewer rather than to the die-hard types waiting in front of their T.V.'s
>with a Player's Guide to catch a mistake.  That's how people get
>interested in a sport - by having the basics explained.  One of the main
>problems with tennis is that it has always seemed somewhat exclusionary. 
>Your post only reinforces that.

No, you misunderstood.  TV does not cater to the casual player, but to the
fan who is not even a player.  Most viewers of TV football and baseball
do not actually play, so they don't spend time showing tips from the pros
on how to punt a football or throw a curveball.  Most viewers, including
myself, just wouldn't care.

But tennis is supposed to be much more of a participation sport than these
other TV sports.  So, we should get lots of tips on how to improve our
games, and insights into what the pros do differently with their shots,
and coverage of the doubles and mixed doubles we often play ourselves
on weekends. Yet, I rarely see anything of the kind at a grand slam event
on network TV --- the ones with the biggest audiences.

As for getting interested in tennis, I got interested by watching the old
Public Broadcasting System (PBS) coverage in the 1970's.  I remember the
incredible winning streak of Guillermo Vilas in the summer of 1977.  Being
PBS, they didn't have commercials, so they showed tennis tips and lots of
slow motion replays during the court changes after every odd game.  It also
gave the announcers time to talk about something interesting.

But, these were minor tournaments, on PBS, with relatively small viewing
audiences. I don't remember any fluff at all, and I do remember seeing
lots of doubles whenever the singles matches finished earlier than expected.
Imagine --- doubles on TV, and it wasn't even grand slam doubles! I remember
Bud Collins -- I thought he was better in those days, but maybe it was just
because I was young. I remember tennis tips from Vic Braden, and also a
series of prerecorded tips from famous players.

I think that you would like the same things I liked, and you are just not
catching my meaning when I say "casual fans".  I didn't say "casual players",
and I didn't mean "casual players."

>>
>>That's what is so great about the Australian Open and the weekly
>tournaments.
>>The ignorant masses of casual American fans are not watching, so we can
>talk
>>about tennis between points.
>>
>I think it would be great if the ignorant masses would watch.  Then maybe
>it would be on network television and I wouldn't have to pay for cable. 
>Then I could talk about a match with actual living people instead of
>having to read a newsgroup to participate in such a discussion.  I'm
>sorry if tennis and television is too democratic for you.  Too bad it
>can't go back to being the sport of kings.


Well, it is easy to paint my criticisms as snobbish.  We are all snobbish
about different things.  Millions of editorialists, writers, TV commentators,
and ordinary citizens have criticized the effects of targeting the lowest
common denominator in an audience.  This applies to popular music, to the
fact that teenagers in shopping malls in the summertime have too much time
and money on their hands and all the movies get made to please them instead
of adults, to criticisms of the lowest common denominator network TV programs,
the tabloid style coverage of politics, the reduction of political debate
to sound bites (documented to be ever shorter over the last 30 years), etc.
You can try to hide all this behind the sacred cow word "democratic", but
let those who have never shared in these criticisms of the effect of lowest
common denominator popular culture throw the first stone.  Anyone who
has honestly never felt critical of these trends is certainly not snobbish,
I guess, but I suggest that terribly low standards are a bigger problem
in today's world than snobbishness.

And yes, I do have harsh criticism of the TV commentators and newspaper
writers when it comes to tennis. And they deserve it.  Here are examples
from a single UPI story about the Open, released today:

1) Michael Chang had never made it past the 4th round in 11 grand slam events
since the 1989 French Open.

FALSE.  He has made it back to the quarterfinals at the French in 1990 and
1991.  They probably meant "other than at the French Open".  This is how
incorrect factoids get spread around about players.

2) After the Edberg-Lendl match was stopped at 6-5 Lendl in the 4th, the
rain let up and they were able to play 3 more games before the next rain,
which cancelled the match for the night.

FALSE. They obviously played 4 more games, not 3, as there was the last
game of the 4th set, then 3 games in the 5th.

Yes, I will confess to being a nitpicker.  But, if I did nothing but write
about tennis for a living, I would have my free ATP media guide in front
of me, and would not write that Chang never made it past the 4th round
since 1989.  It isn't that hard to look up.

By the way, I spoke to the guy who edits the ATP guide yesterday on the
phone.  He said that the grand slam events refuse to use the ATP computer
statistics, because they resent the ATP or something.  He sees them post
all kinds of bogus information all the time.  He checks it on his computer,
and confirms that the stuff on TV was wrong.  It is ridiculous for US Open
staff, or Wimbledon staff, to post data that pertains only to ATP tourneys
that were not grand slam events, when they don't go to the proper source.
He gave as an example the hardcourt record of Edberg this year, which was
put up on the screen during the Krajicek match and was wrong in both the
win column and the loss column.  This is just unprofessionalism, stupid
rivalries, and lack of effort by people whose entire livelihood is tennis.
Yes, that tends to make me pretty critical.




-- 
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"It is seldom that any liberty is lost all at once." David Hume
|||  clc5q@virginia.edu (Clark L. Coleman)
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis