Posts Tagged ‘universal sports’

Boston Marathon TV Coverage: What You Missed

If you didn’t fork over $4.99 of your hard-earned wages to Universal Sports to view their exclusive (outside of Boston) coverage of the Boston Marathon, here’s what you missed:

* Larry Rawson’s annual monologue on the cost of living in Ethiopia.

* The revelation that the Ashland High School sports teams are called “The Clockers.”

* Al Trautwig announcing “Ryan Hall has been dropped!” 51 minutes into the race.

* Al Trautwig announcing “Ryan Hall has retaken the lead!” 56 minutes into the race.

* Rawson informing us that elite marathoners have resting heart rates of 40 to 48 beats per hour.

* Trautwig repeating several times that eventual female winner Teyba Erkesso made her break from the pack at mile 15, when she actually did it at mile 12.

* Trautwig repeating several times that Erkesso had a 2:01 lead over second-place runner Tatyana Pushkareva – the last time just as Pushkareva appeared in the same camera shot as Erkesso.

* A graphic that showed Pushkareva had made up 1:26 on Erkesso in the space of one mile – which clearly did not happen.

* Rawson saying that Pushkareva’s leg turnover was faster than Erkesso’s, to which Trautwig replied, “Erkesso’s is bump-bump-bump, while Pushkareva’s is bump-bump-bump-bump-bump.”

If you did fork over $4.99 of your hard-earned wages to Universal Sports to view their exclusive (outside of Boston) coverage of the Boston Marathon, here’s what you missed:

* The names of most of the contenders.

* Mile splits of anyone other than the male and female leader.

* Accurate and timely mile splits of the male and female leader.

* Any information prior to the last half-mile that Cheruiyot was running a course record pace – by a lot.

* What mile the runners were on.

* Virtually every surge and breakout – particularly in the men’s race.

* The sense that Trautwig, Rawson, the producers, the director and Universal Sports cared enough about the broadcast to at least cover the fundamentals properly – who’s ahead, by how much, how far in, and who’s gaining.

I realize this is a pretty harsh assessment, but others share it (see Pre’s Mustache or the Let’s Run message thread). But after last year’s putrid coverage, it appears the only change Universal Sports made was to start charging a fee for it.

Video is so ubiquitous now you need only place a few dozen people with cell phones along the route, couple it with some insightful expert commentary, put it on the web and charge $3.00 for it, and your worst effort would still be an improvement over what we have now. Where are my capitalists?

Productivity Enhancer

Bored at work? If you missed it on Sunday, you can watch NBC’s entire two-hour coverage of the Nike Prefontaine Classic on the Universal Sports web site.

Why Is Boston Marathon Coverage So Awful?

The Boston Marathon is the most prestigious distance race on the planet, and this year – after some 24 years of futility – American runners had legitimate chances to win in both the men’s and women’s divisions.

National television coverage of the race has bounced from Versus to ESPN to nothing in the last three years, forcing enthusiasts to watch the 2009 running on the Universal Sports web site.

The race itself was well worth watching, particularly the women’s side, as Kara Goucher could not hold her lead over the last mile and finished third. Ryan Hall surged at the end to also finish third after being dropped with about 7 miles to go. I assume Universal was piggybacking on local coverage of the race, but it was very difficult to watch the constant split screens within a tiny viewer.

The visuals were acceptable, but the commentary was not. With all the running talent available, why, why, why do we have to endure Al Trautwig and Larry Rawson again?

Here’s what you missed:

* Rawson telling viewers that wheelchair champion Ernst van Dyk had a “genital defect” instead of a “congenital defect.”

* Rawson asking Trautwig to guess what runner Daniel Rono did while in the city for the New York Marathon, and Trautwig replying, “Sat in traffic?”

* Trautwig and Rawson arguing about cherry blossoms during the latter stages of the women’s race.

* Trautwig several times trumpeting the Ethiopian sweep of the men’s and women’s races, despite the fact that a Kenyan won the women’s race.

* Trautwig and Rawson paying little attention to the plight of second-place women’s finisher Dire Tune, who had to be placed on a stretcher at the end of the race.

Covering marathons is a challenge. It goes on for more than two hours without many dramatic moments, requiring quite a bit of time-filling commentary. This leads to lots of soliloquys about the Ethiopian economy, the wind direction through Boston, and other extraneous stuff. Even so, the coverage failed to provide some basic information, like WHAT MILE ARE THEY ON? A graphic of the elapsed time for both the men’s and women’s races was smart, but without any indication of where the runners were – except for fleeting glimpses of kilometer markers – the time wasn’t very useful.

A marathon will never be a TV ratings bonanza, so if we’re stuck with live video streams, let’s experiment with no commentators and additional graphics, or commentators actually in the pack with the runners, or spectator Twitter reports from various locations (“Kara Goucher threw her GU pack at me!”). Anything to shake things up.