From: morgan@ms.uky.edu (Wes Morgan)
Subject: Re: Billy and Nantz
Date: Thu, 9 Apr 1992 13:18:04 GMT
Organization: The Puzzle Palace, UKentucky
X-Bytes: 

db@duke.cs.duke.edu (Dov Bulka) writes:
>
>I'm geting real tired with all you guys bithcing and whining about
>everything that moves. No sportscaster and no network is good enough 
>for you. 

Actually, everyone in the discussion has said, essentially, the same
thing: "ESPN does it right".  I'd consider that a ringing endorsement!

Sportscasters, unfortunately, are a dime a dozen.  CBS Radio had the
right idea a few years ago; they picked up a long-term commitment from a 
quality broadcaster (Cawood Ledford); many posters have mentioned that the 
2-minute snippet of his radio broadcast was MUCH better than the CBS-TV 
bozos.  Unfortunately, Duke-IU was his last game; he's retiring after almost 
40 years behind the microphone.  TV networks, on the other hand, seems to 
consider the NCAA as a "sportscaster proving ground"; the cast changes every 
season.  One of the most enjoyable parts of a good broadcast is the historical 
nuances that only come with experienced broadcasters.  Think about it; were 
any parallels drawn between players from this Final Four and the great teams of
the past?  Heck, one comparison was dropped right into CBS' lap -- this
year's Michigan team and the NCAA championship Michigan team of a few years
ago.  

>Picking on defenseless sports announcers is a safe way
>to post something without getting flamed. Well, not anymore.

They are hardly "defenseless"; the problem is that, for some reason, their
network superiors think they're doing a good job.  I've written my letter
to those superiors; hopefully, others will do the same.  I've found such
letters to be effective in the past; on one occasion, I received a per-
sonal reply from a broadcaster, debating my points!

>It's not easy to talk two straight hours with commentary and
>fill the voids when a guy goes to the foul line. 

Sure it is!  Have you ever done it?  I've spent quite a few games on press
row, and the good broadcasters have material *ready* for just such an occa-
sion.  The television boys have become soft; they depend on their "stat crew",
which is hunkered down over a PC, furiously extracting useless information
from a database during the game.  Didn't you ever wonder how they come up
with stats such as "When Whassamatta U. has a run of greater than 10-2 during
games, they're 12-0"?  If nothing else, you can always throw a graphic of the
player with his hometown and collegiate major, just as the football broad-
casters do.  You can throw up a graphic of "the season so far", season stats,
history of the particular matchup, a particular player's career stats, or
maybe even *gasp* a replay of the foul!  

>So they use
>a few cliches and state the obvious sometimes. Big deal.

"sometimes"?  "*SOMETIMES*"?  These guys LIVE for the obvious!

Part of the problem lies in the drive for "mass appeal" for the sport.  Almost
every sport is over-analyzed.  The broadcasters, in their drive for viewers,
have decided that it is necessary to "hype" the game.  As a result, we get
graphics like that ridiculous "SuperLaettner" clip before the championship.
My gosh, what will they have next -- "March Madness: The Comic Book"?  Will
SuperLaettner and Green Hurley overcome the evil Dark Knight?  Feh.

>Overall, these announcers are very knowledgable in many sports

Yup; it's a shame that basketball isn't one of them.

>and help pump excitment into the NCAA basketball.

Are you kidding?  I spent most of the tournament with my Walkman pouring
the radio commentary into one ear, while the Columbia Bozo System filled
the other.

Sure, they "pump excitement" into the game, but it's completely artificial.
Hype, when created for its own sake, is useless and detrimental.
You could divide the championship game's commentary into four segments:

              1                2               3                   4
Duke     Krzyzewski      Laettner sick?    Hurley/Hill     Laettner resurgent!
UMich    "Freshmen!"      "Freshmen!"    "undisciplined"    "lost composure"

Packer   "DUKE R00LZ"    "Poor Christian"  "Great defense"   "DUKE R00LZ"


You want to generate excitement?  Set up some replays of the "great plays of
the tournament"!  Heck, they didn't even do a recap of the tournament!  We
didn't hear squat about any of the great games that led to the Final Four.

The game itself will generate the excitement; the sportscasters should never
be preeminent.  Think about it; the only sportscasters who are "well known"
are the obnoxious, like Vitale and Packer.  The good ones are the ones you
never really notice.

While we're at it, I'll also mention the fact that the good sportcasters
are *impartial*.  Packer couldn't make a statement against an ACC team if
his life depended on it.  After four minutes of Duke-Michigan, he was al-
ready laying the groundwork for an excuse with comments such as "Laettner
must be physically sick, or maybe he's injured."  To pull a phrase from
another newsgroup, Packer is a suck-at-the-ACC-teat broadcaster.  

If you want to generate excitement, you let the game speak for itself.
The rabid, "I don't want to hear anything negative" fans will listen to
their local hypemasters^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hbroadcasters, and the game 
itself will generate excitement for the rest.

>Give it a rest.

I wish they would.  Send these guys back to the minors; they should spend
another apprenticeship doing high school games in the Midwest (do they still
play 3-on-3 in the smaller schools out there?  Perhaps these bozos could han-
dle that.)

-- 
 morgan@ms.uky.edu    |Wes Morgan, not speaking for|     ....!ukma!ukecc!morgan
 morgan@engr.uky.edu  |the University of Kentucky's|   morgan%engr.uky.edu@UKCC
 morgan@ie.pa.uky.edu |Engineering Computing Center| morgan@wuarchive.wustl.edu
        "I was going to rip your head off, but I'm past that now."