From: clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin)
Subject: Re: US Open - General Observations
Originator: clin@state.eng.umd.edu
Organization: College of Engineering, Maryversity von Uniland, College Park
Date: Sun, 13 Sep 1992 07:04:11 GMT


In article <18uj2sINNmiu@bach.crhc.uiuc.edu>, guillory@crhc.uiuc.edu (Stanford Guillory) writes:
>clin@eng.umd.edu (Charles Lin) writes:
>>    I may be the one of the few defenders of Clark.   However, look at some
>>telecast of football.   Obviously, they believe that the majority of the
>>viewers know enough of the rules of football (which are quite numerous
>>and always changing -- American football, that is).  I would guess that
>
>Probably due to the fact the the 1967 Super Bowl had a Nielson
>rating of 300.0! Does anybody have the ratings for the 92 open?
>Thank you.

   You yourself claimed that you learned a lot about tennis just
by watching telecasts that may have been, in other people's words,
not geared toward the highest adherents of the sport.  So, it's
a good idea for tennis telecasts not to be a little better so
you can learn things from it, and yet it's OK for football telecasts
to be incomprehensible to the beginner because everyone knows it.

>Oh, yeah, right! I am sure that those bookies have NO clue as
>to the physical condition of the participants. You did mention
>that "I don't know" about injuries in other sports, so I won't go
>into why injuries are announced and printed in the daily newspapers.

    Well, the bookies aren't the ones on tv calling the game.

>Well, for one thing, a player will LIE if he/she has a BRAIN.
>
>Totally stupid situation:
>
>Reporter: Sampras, do you have any injuries that will effect your
>          match against Courier.
>
>Sampras: Well, I have I pulled hamstring, so I won't be able
>         to come in behind my serve. I am going to have to beat
>         Courier from the baseline today.

   I have seem Graf say that she wasn't feeling well at some point,
and if Shun can get info about how the player's health are, then it
doesn't seem unreasonable to me that the commentators can find
out, too.   In any case, I doubt Seles's illness could have
been kept so secret, and even people who knew could hardly
keep Seles from playing her game.   If someone is injured, keeping
it a secret will probably not affect a thing.  If it is serious
enough to affect play, then the player will most likely lose.
The only case where I heard that "spilling the beans" on an 
injury was when Borg played a match and had a shoulder injury
and his coach wondered aloud why no one lobbed Borg, and so
someone did.

>>   In general, what I dislike is the constant repetition of the score
>>whenever the chair umpire has just called it.  It's as if they
>
>Hello!?! We don't ALL hear the chair umpire. 

   There are microphones on the court.  I don't care so much if
the umpire didn't say it, but you will often hear "40-15" by
the umpire, and 1 second later, the announcer repeating the
score.  If you can't hear the umpire, fine.  I did not think
he talked so softly.

>>believe the listener can't hear it, or can't deal with the silence.
>
>Oh, I'm sorry, you must have a better quality TV than I. What about
>at the French? (Yes! I have learned to keep score in French.)

   Me, too.   Well, I suppose it's OK for the French Open.  I
am not claiming that this problem occurs all the time.  But,
I think some comments like "He's hitting crosscourt" or "He
hit a winner." is as obvious as "He threw the football, and it
was caught".

>
>>In Hard Courts, by Feinstein, Ted Tinling was said to have criticized
>>Wendy Turnbull(?) for making obvious statements, such as "She just hit
>>a ball crosscourt".  Tim Mayotte is guilty of this in replays as well.
>>Just echoing what was done.  After a while, one ought to know what
>>down the line and crosscourt is.  Hopefully, with experience, this
>>will change.
>
>Given the debate on who the coverage is intended for, I wouldn't
>get too hopeful. There was a time when I knew nothing of tennis
>and had to watch TV coverage to figure the game out. Now, every
>ONCE in a WHILE, I learn something new. I don't expect the coverage
>to follow my level of expertise. I have no problem with it drifting
>somewhere behind it. 

    I'm not too hopeful either, but as hard as it may be for you
to believe, tennis coverage does not irritate me to any strong
degree.  I just have preferences on what might make it better.
Still, if you don't expect tennis to cover your expertise, then
why should football and baseball follow mine?  Merely because
the numbers says it is so?  So, if 20 million people watch football,
then it is OK to cater to those knowledgeable viewers, but
if 1 million watch tennis, then many of them don't understand
tennis, and so they have to be catered too?  What we need is
some sort of estimate.  It is fairly obvious that many people
believe that a large number of people watch tennis without
knowing rules, etc., but a large number of people watch
football and do know the rules.

   Considering that tennis ratings are low compared to football,
basketball, etc. it would seem that only those who want to watch
tennis, plus those who are getting into the game watch the
telecast.   If we assume that tennis telecasts are geared for
the novice player or watcher, then why doesn't it get better
ratings?

   Of course, I could complain about more obvious things like
why the French Open women's finals isn't covered live or
often in its entirety?   I suppose the response would
be that many more people would prefer to watch the
weekend football game (well, football isn't on during the
French Open) and they have to be catered to as well.

   Anyway, it's hard for me to believe that you think tennis
telecasts are so perfect that nothing they could do would
improve it.  All I was doing was pointing out things that
I disliked, but I still manage to watch tennis without
pulling out my hair in disgust.   In fact, I think their job
is done better than adequate.  They pull out stats and info
on players, etc. which is nice to see.   The things that
bother me occur rather rarely (it's not so often that the
announcer repeats the score, though Summerall and MacKay do
it a bit too often for my tastes).   

   Oh well, I hadn't expected this to turn to such a flame-fest.
At least, I never got caught in the Becker discussion.

--
Charles Lin
clin@eng.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.sport.tennis