Ideas to improve tv broadcasts of marathons?

Split screen to show the men and women runners at times so we can see both. And can split the screen to show the wheelchair racers at points with either the men or women runners.

Split times per mile and estimated finish time with splits.

A ticker to show say the top 10 men and women and their time at each mile. Say leader and then +1 second for second person name +10 seconds for say next runner name ect.

Karl Hungus wrote:

So we know that the tv coverage of Boston was a hot mess and we had to go elsewhere for good coverage. But what would make it better? Better announcers? More graphics? Statistics? Help me out in this.

I don't know. The biggest problem I saw was the men nearly caught up to the women. So while they were covering the post finish drama with Desi which was great by the way, we missed the chase, catch, and pass by Kawauchi which was a shame. Some awareness on NBC's part would have helped. Maybe they should hire Frank Shorter to cover the race in the booth. He wouldn't let that slip by him.

The other option would be for BAA to take control and dumb it down for the coverage people by starting the women 1 hour before the men next time.

Who actually wants to watch that? You must have no life

Eliminate the wheelchairs

Fire all announcers and just show the feed;) I can do my own audio...

One thing Boston got right was that they kept it interesting with cutscenes; Breaking2 did something similar. Disallow commentators to give their opinions, just cold facts. The coverage I found showed a textbox of 'how to win Boston'. It was basically everything Kawauchi didn't do. Ironic. Berlin shows time alongside the distance covered to a tenth of a kilo, this feature is good. More statistics is good as long as it doesn't suffocate the live coverage. Going back to cutscenes, marathons could have miniclips of the competitors' lives like in Breaking2. It would help people get more invested in the race and make it a more emotional experience, which I think would boost viewership. A marathon is a story, not just a race to the finish line.

3200y5000 wrote:

One thing Boston got right was that they kept it interesting with cutscenes; Breaking2 did something similar. Disallow commentators to give their opinions, just cold facts. The coverage I found showed a textbox of 'how to win Boston'. It was basically everything Kawauchi didn't do. Ironic. Berlin shows time alongside the distance covered to a tenth of a kilo, this feature is good. More statistics is good as long as it doesn't suffocate the live coverage. Going back to cutscenes, marathons could have miniclips of the competitors' lives like in Breaking2. It would help people get more invested in the race and make it a more emotional experience, which I think would boost viewership. A marathon is a story, not just a race to the finish line.

Very much agree w/this. If production followed more of the elites around (leading up to the race) and captured an inside look at the athletes personalities/routine/training, the viewer would connect on a much stronger level.

I’m sure this takes significantly more effort & planning unfortunately..

We should just let the people who do golf broadcasts take over all track and road racing events.

Wire the runners for HR and GPS. Show a box with the top 10 runners, like NASCAR, that shows position, HR, and distance from leader.

HR should blick red when it bumps up more than 1 bpm (maybe 2... you'd have to see it a few times to decide when it was actually working harder and when it was just noise). This would show if a runner was struggling minutes before he actually dropped off the pace.

Distance from leader would be shown in seconds (with a pack of runners all shown as less than 1). It would blink green if they were catching the leader and red if dropping back.

HR creep could also be shown. Average pace over the last 10 seconds would also be a good bit of information.

This would help announcers immensely, because most of the race, they're just looking a pack of guys running together for the first hour and a half. In my opinion, this is boring.

i think they should kinda do mini stories of each runners training plans and career

Uninterrupted camera on men's and women's lead pack. No wheelchair coverage no charity runner coverage. nothing but continuous coverage of the elite race from start to finish.

PRDreamer wrote:

Uninterrupted camera on men's and women's lead pack. No wheelchair coverage no charity runner coverage. nothing but continuous coverage of the elite race from start to finish.

^^^ This, I agree with 110%

Keep it simple and please don’t start that NBC Olympics bullshit with creating background stories about runners!!! I want to watch the race, not some slanted biopic, this isn’t History channel ffs... Just get the damn data right (names , splits, positions)... That’s all I ask for... If I want to find out anything about the racer, I can google it faster...

KawauchiFTW wrote:

PRDreamer wrote:

Uninterrupted camera on men's and women's lead pack. No wheelchair coverage no charity runner coverage. nothing but continuous coverage of the elite race from start to finish.

^^^ This, I agree with 110%

Keep it simple and please don’t start that NBC Olympics bullshit with creating background stories about runners!!! I want to watch the race, not some slanted biopic, this isn’t History channel ffs... Just get the damn data right (names , splits, positions)... That’s all I ask for... If I want to find out anything about the racer, I can google it faster...

Clearly we can google anything we’d like to know about an individual. But it’s up to the broadcast team to drop that info into our lap; the color commentary needs to “paint a picture” for the viewer. That’s their d*mn job.

As others have said it's not hard.

- ALWAYS have the elite leaders on screen. Splitscreen it however you have to, put them next to your interviews and cutscenes or even ads, but never ever cut away.

- up to date splits shown often along with top 10 leaderboard and gap to first place

- actual knowledgeable commentators! and put on screen what they say when they say.

Bonus: multiple cameras out there in case there is a leader and chase pack. Split screens once in a while to show the chase. A roving camera that drops back to 10th or so would be cool to see how others than the leader are faring.

fan o the sprt wrote:

As others have said it's not hard.

- ALWAYS have the elite leaders on screen. Splitscreen it however you have to, put them next to your interviews and cutscenes or even ads, but never ever cut away.

- up to date splits shown often along with top 10 leaderboard and gap to first place

- actual knowledgeable commentators! and put on screen what they say when they say.

Bonus: multiple cameras out there in case there is a leader and chase pack. Split screens once in a while to show the chase. A roving camera that drops back to 10th or so would be cool to see how others than the leader are faring.

Agreed.

Cover it like NASCAR, jeez, it's not that difficult.

Show the leaders non-stop, split screen. Put a roving motorcycle with a camera there, to show what's going on behind (think Tour de France coverage). Show live splits scrolling, with up/down arrows for who is gaining and who is losing).

If NBC covered football by cutting away during the game to show human interest stories, how well do you think that would work?

Karl Hungus wrote:

So we know that the tv coverage of Boston was a hot mess and we had to go elsewhere for good coverage. But what would make it better? Better announcers? More graphics? Statistics? Help me out in this.

Watch it on the BBC for a start. We have runners commentating.

I think it could be interesting to have fans interact with questions or comments/analysis through something like Twitter or a live forum. In a live stream, some great topics or talking points can be presented in respects to the race or competitors. Also, it may help direct great questions from the experts/past runners who are part of the broadcast.

Have Phil Liggett, Paul Sherwen and Bob Roll do the commentary

otter wrote:

Karl Hungus wrote:

So we know that the tv coverage of Boston was a hot mess and we had to go elsewhere for good coverage. But what would make it better? Better announcers? More graphics? Statistics? Help me out in this.

I don't know. The biggest problem I saw was the men nearly caught up to the women. So while they were covering the post finish drama with Desi which was great by the way, we missed the chase, catch, and pass by Kawauchi which was a shame. Some awareness on NBC's part would have helped. Maybe they should hire Frank Shorter to cover the race in the booth. He wouldn't let that slip by him.

The other option would be for BAA to take control and dumb it down for the coverage people by starting the women 1 hour before the men next time.

Actually enjoyed watching the men pass the women, or at least would have if they'd shown it instead of cutting away to watch Desi jog along main street on her own for five minutes.

Marathons are essentially boring. The last two or three I've watched where something happened, the TV coverage missed it. That's the unforgivable bit. Make sure the people in the director's booth actually understand the sport to know where the action really is.

Definitely give all the elites individual GPS trackers and have that info able to be used to calculate closing speeds, differences etc, etc.