If You Watched the Reebok Boston Indoor Games on TV Posts Your Comments Here

Being the track experts that we all are, we could easily sit back and pick apart ESPN, Rawson and Dwight til the cows come home.

I won't. It was much better than nothing, and I enjoyed having it rather than not having it.

I will tune in next week for their coverage of Milrose as well - they sounded generally excited about the performances and were hyping next weekend's Milrose gig.

I liked the coverage of the high school races and would actually have loved coverage of the Master's mile.

I would have liked to seen a few more laps of the Flanagan race and seen Defar,Flanagan and Kim Smith broken away together.

I would have liked to see a sprint relay on the banked indoor tracks if there was one.

Overall the coverage was great and was impressed by the 2 hours of coverage.

I got in High Def

What they need to do is what they do for soccer and indy racing, and that is go picture in picture when they go to commercial (I forget what they call it). So they could show the entire 3k in one box, and have their necessary commercial in the other.

I thought it was good coverage. Some of the people on this board have to stop being so picky about every word the commentators speak. Didn't they ever hear a football "expert" say that a team has to score more points to win?

I like the analogies Rawson makes- I know someone who went to his local 400 meter track and tried to run 400 meters at 5:00 pace, he stopped at 200 meters when he was behind and had a real appreciation for track.

I also think that Rawson shows a true love for the sport, as does Stones.

I agree that the camera should stay on the finish line, with the clock running, as the whole field crosses the line.

It was very dumb when they had the interview with Mottram about his "big move" at the BIG last year and didn't even show it. Funny they interviewed Aries Merritt and then got DQed for false starting.

I liked Dibaba.

step up wrote:

Thought showing the false start in the men's 60 hurdles was peculiar. Later in the open 60 they just noted a couple runners had already been DQ'd.

The reason for this was Aries was one of their featured athletes on the website they were focusing on.

deep thoughts wrote:

At some point they did mention that Flanagan broke Regina's AR

yeah, but there was no mention that she retired cause she got banned for steroids, which I think makes SF's new record even more impressive (assuming we as a letsrun collective haven't put her in the naughty list yet...)

Also, just throwing this out there, and just speculation, how much do you think ESPN pays for rights to T+F, and would it make sense for someone to outbid them and provide better coverage online for a minimal fee? How many people would pay $XX for awesome USA track coverage?

I had no complaints. It was among the most enjoyable meets I've ever watched. I can live with a single commercial break in a 3K.

That is why they have to stop focusing on one or two athletes. There is a field of runners and, in theroy, anyone can win. It seems that they often focus on someone who false starts, pulls up, or just plain runs bad.

Overall I thought the coverage to a solid step forward. The time updates on screen were nice and the split screen in race interviews were a great addition. While I think we all need to understand that ESPN is not catering their coverage to die-hard distance fans I wish the big moves of the distance races were covered. Overall I am glad to see ESPN moving their coverage in the right direction... Keep up the good work and I look forward to Millrose!!!

"While I think we all need to understand that ESPN is not catering their coverage to die-hard distance fans I wish the big moves of the distance races were covered."

The womens 5k was a blowout. How many women were even on the track at the end? It looked like three. So even though it was a WW, if they're not going to show all of the race cut back on the 5k coverage a bit more and show all of the womens 3000. I mean, this was a taped program. Who edits these events. Wasn't anyone in there (editing for the broadcast) aware that this was a huge run for American women distance runners? Besides being able to see that it was a much better competition? Or is it a case again, like the mens 60 hurdles, where people have pointed out that there was a special interest story on Merrick, so they probably felt obligated to show the start where he got DQ'd. They do the special interest on the Ethiopian women, so even though the 3000 was a more exciting event and it involved an American women, they felt obligated to go with footage of the Ethiopian women.

Count me in agreeing that some track is better than no track. I also would like to see the finish line for the entire race and comparisons with past performances for those not winning.

Now the mean answer. No Carol Lewis is addition by subtraction.

I thought the coverage was actually very good. I've been a huge critic of their coverage (and all the other US networks) in the past, but this was a very good, solid job. They conveyed a good deal of the excitement and the dynamic of the distance races and they showed a good deal of the other races.

In this country, the standard grade for track coverage on TV is about a D-. Anything above that is reason for celebration, and that broadcast was at least a B+.

Pretty good, compared to what we usually get. I watched all 2 hours even though I already knew who had won each race. I'd give it a B+, maybe an A, if they ahd Carol lewis as a commentator.

Pretty shabby coverage. Reebok should move the meet to the Home Depot stadium in Carson. It's stupid to hold an indoor meet in the winter and Boston sucks for everything I can think of. They hold all outdoors comers meets in California all fall and winter long. Reebok, move the meet to Carson !

Why do they have to tell some crappy story instead of calling the race?

do you have the 5k youtube?