I can't think of anyone who knows jack about track that thinks showing the winning jump or throw is exciting. The important thing about field events is the drama that unfolds from round to round. Just like the distance events, it's absolutely useless to show just the winning effort. You have to show the whole competition. It's no better than showing the last 50 meters of a 10,000. Who cares?
You would think Stones would know that, and have enough influence to do something about that.
I love how Carol Lewis does the broadcast for track events. She always seems well prepared and very knowledgeable. I think she does a great job!
The coverage was obviously slanted towards sprint events. As someone said above, it was very hard for them to show more that 400 meters of consecutive running. The only conclusioin that I can come to is that this constitutes "race" discrimination. Why should some races be better than others? Why are they afraid to show images of members of one race in their entirety? Why can't we all get along?! End race-ism NOW. End race-ism forever.
Bum, you have had the first three virgins and they are complaining. The idea is to deflower them, not to raise the question of will he turner or will he tayler. This is your laast chance. These virgins have sexual rights, too.
I've just read all the messages about me and my broadcasting of the track meets and my hair style.
I've decided you're all right and I'm going to start training for the 2007 New York Marathon!
My goal is to get up to 100 miles a week.
Oh yes and I'm going to run the MT. Washington hill climb next spring to get ready for the marathon.
After that I am going to run the 2008 London marathon and break the women's World Record! I think it is 2:15 or something like that but I've done the long jump before so it shouldn't be hard for me.
Then I'm going to enter the Olympic games and get 5 gold medals, in the marathon, 10000 meters, 5000 meters, long jump and the 4x 100 meter relay. My plan is to break the world records in each one of these events at the Trials.
Also I'm going to gain some more weight to make sure I have the strength to do these things. Once I get in shape I will start posting my progress here on the message boards! Stay tuned for my progress reports!
The day middle and long distance will be broadcast in their entirety by any network, and not have Carol Lewis commentating on distance events, I will party hard as THAT WILL BE THE DAY OF THE APOCALYPSE.
I agree, I don't care about the team title and the continous coverage of the triple jump. So is the meet over when a team clinches the title? If that's the case we should do this with every other sport, NBA, NFL, included. And we wonder why track annd field coverage is on the decline around the world (sorry highlights do trackmeets and marathons no justice CBS and ESPN).
Did anyone else hear that the coach for FSU refused to be interviewed until after the steeple. He said he had one more athlete left (Lemoncello) and wanted to give him the full attention he desired. Probably the only reason we got to see the full steeple race. Good for him.
CBS sucks. I don't know how Carol Lewis can be on any station that shows track. She sucks at the Olympics and she really sucked here.
ffk wrote:
Bum, you have had the first three virgins and they are complaining. The idea is to deflower them, not to raise the question of will he turner or will he tayler. This is your laast chance. These virgins have sexual rights, too.
I know I'm really in hell. One of the three was Carol Lewis.
My favorite part was watching the guys raking the triple jump pit while the 1500m was being run. Between CBS, ABC, and ESPN 2's coverage of track events, I'd give the slight edge to ESPN2, even though they did miss the WR in the women's 5k the other week...
FSN coverage of CA High School Meet > CBS coverage of NCAA Meet.
Not even close.
The showed 2 running events (men and women 4 x 400) in the last 30 minutes of coverage.
Right to the point wrote: THE point is that no one much cares about track. EXCEPT people who follow it! So instead of dumm'n down the meet for TV... how about stepping it up!!
I remember NBC coverage of the first world championships in Helsinki, 1983. They would have daily coverage after Johnny Carson was over. Nobody would have been watching this except track fans, right? But NBC treated it as if it were pre-empting soap operas or something. All the "up-close-and-personal" crap. They even had Dick Enberg do a 10 minute piece on Finnish culture. I remember sitting there at 1:30 in the morning watching Dick Enberg take a sauna and thinking, is there even one person watching this who isn't pissed off they aren't watching a race? Did anybody tune in to a track meet in the middle of the night and think, I sure hope they find time to give me some local color?
I was pissed off too that all the commentator could ask the FSU miler was what he thought about the team title. Anyone could see he was upset about running a ballsy race and getting nipped at the line. He clearly didnt give a f*** about a team title when his individual title got taken at the line...
After reading a few of the posts here, I'm pleased to say I was busy and away from a tv ALL day y'day.
Does anyone have a video of the race and postrace interview?
Thanks
It was obvious that Fl State knew going into the last day that it would be a "blow-out"!!! CBS had horrible coverage. Should have had top three (or more) in each event. They chose to just show who won in alot of the events. When will they figure it out that we like to watch the races much more than just the winners and the interviews? We also want to watch the field not close-ups on one or two runners.
Here's what I wrote elsewhere online:
Taken in aggregate, the way CBS covered the NCAA championships was almost apologetic. You get the impression that they thought the viewer doesn't actually like watching track & field. "We're sorry you turned your TV to this. We'll try to avoid showing you a track and field meet. We know you'd much rather see some talking heads and interviews with people with nothing to say other than 'Winning feels great! I worked so hard for this!' Maybe if we suck balls at this we won't have to come back and do it again."
I do remember that. But NBC showed same day coverage of eight days of track and field, which is better than what we're seeing now.
Stone was a high jumper. He thinks the middle of a distance run is boring also. It's a lost cause. They will never do it right unless the producer was a former track runner. What are the chances of that. We're screwed.