Problems with Boston race coverage, TV and this sport

Runningart2004 wrote:

Any other ideas? Discussion?

Alan

Yes.

Once again, runningfart makes a big long post, tells us all what we already know and wastes our time by having no point.

Did you even watch the coverage?

1) Though I may not be a big fan, Tony Reavis and Katherine Switzer clearly qualify as "running people."

2) Nothing gets missed during commercial breaks since the station continues to broadcast the race simultaneously with the commercial.

3) More cameras and a helicopter cam? We're talking about a local television station with limited resources. Get a grip. They do a fantastic job under the circumstances.

My idea? You should not post about things you obviously know nothing about. Pay attention!

You are confusing the Versus Network coverage with the WBZ-TV local coverage. The original post concerned itself with the Versus national coverage not WBZ's local angle.

Well I'm so glad everyone is having an adult conversation on a serious problem about getting this sport across to the masses and hardcore fans instead of a childish fight like monkeys flinging poop at each other.

Count the number of cameras at other major sporting events. Listen to the commentary. Now listen to a marathon race or track and field event. Difference? Discuss?

Alan

Let the Citizen Journalists have free access to the Boston mara. BAA already use volunteers for the race video, interviews, photography, who pay their own way. Open it up further and allow more amateur websites to video the mara. Everyone has a camcorder, and point and shoot, an SLR camera, and can upload. Use the citizen journalism resource more widely.

Focus more on actual good runners instead of lance armstrong

(sorry this got very long...most of you will probably not read it)

I worked on TV coverage of the men's USOT and the ING NYCM last fall. I learned that a lot of what I thought was going on with TV was wrong. It;s a lot more complex than turning on the cameras and broadcasting what you see.

Some top-of-my-head thoughts with respoect to what was brought by "Runningart2004" and "The Week That Was"

- part of the problem is that unlike football, there are no TV timeouts, no set plays so you know when the action will happen, and no referee to tell Cheruyot he can't make a move until they're back from break.

- it's dismayingly easy to "miss a breakaway move" because weeks in advance of the race, the telecast scheduling (commercials, "let's check on Lance", interview with Cheruyot, even the annoucners' periods of banter) is choreographed down in increments as small as 10 seconds. The times of commercial breaks are LOCKED IN. No change, or there will be no advertisers, and thus no broadcast.

- Even with everyone's headsets, mikes, cameras working perfectly, with the whole team working at top speed it takes no less than 30 seconds and more like 60 seconds between the motorcycle reporter spotting a newsworthy thing and flagging it for the producer & director, to getting that camera and mike live on the air...more if it's during a Prokopchuka interview bit (which of course would have been exactly 2:35 long and scheduled back in March to air at 11:02:45 AM).

- "Heartbreak Hill" takes 90 seconds to run. Blink and you miss it. Not a big window to hit when you can only guesstimate when they're on it by trying to spot essentially indistinguishable "landmarks" by looking at a small TV monitor in daylight on a catwalk above Boylston Street. And the annoucners typically have up to 8 people talking/shouting into their headsets, mostly simultaneously. The race clock may not make a really good indicatr because paces change drastially and constantly during the 3 miles or so preceding that point.

That said, given the TV-ish drama associated w/ saying "Heartbreak Hill", spotters on bikes and the motorcycle team should have flagged an approx 2-minute warning that they were nearing it.

- Tenh fact that lance armstriong uis so commonly discussed even here on LetsRun.com should indicate to any savvy TV producer that there is attention paid there, and that because of that interest Lance belongs on TV.

- the similarly point-to-point ING NYCM had 41 cameras on the job. I don't know how many Boston had, but my gueses is "about the same". Not sure how many NFL games have, but I'd guesss "fewer." So a dearth of cameras is not the problem.

An overhead camera at some point in the race is useful only twice, for 5-10 seconds a pop (as the women, then men, run by it).

More cameras in the pack means more motorcycles (big ones) on the course. They are not maneuverable when going at "running" speeds of 11-15mph. Very serious risk of interfering with the competitors, which is the LAST thing you want on camera.

- Aside from winning, there is little drama in a battle for any other placing, except in the USOT (where 3rd goes overseas and 4th goes home) -- so it's bad TV. Consider how you watch every other sport...Once it's down to Woods vs. Mickelson, who cares that Els moved into third?

- a 90 second delay may not solve anything...what if the commercial break is scheduled for a time 85 seconds after Robert makes his big move? then you would have to present a discontinuous "near-live" feed -- all of a sudden you "break" ahead in time to up the road to catch it "live" before the break...and all the reasons for broadcasting live or near-live are gone.

In sum, live TV of an unpredictable outdoor sport on a 26-mile, largely uncontrollable "playing field" is a hard undertaking for everyione involved. In fact, I'm amazed they pull it off as well as they do.

I only have, and only need one rebuttal: "Le Tour de France." That coverage is good, in depth and covers a lot more competitors, distance and very tough terrain. You're in the media right? Find out how they do it.

Joe - Great email, but despite the time on the clock, Heartbreak Hill always comes at the same spot in the race. It would be quite easy to know that at 19.5 (or whatever the start of it is) the famous incline has begun.

I must agree, the tour is covered great, thanks mostly to the excellent announcers, Bob Rohl and especially Phil Ligett. These guys always have good discussions, banter. Would love to hear Phil do a marathon.

Also, look at baseball, most of the time is spent waiting for the pitch or watching a play, which can take no more than 5-7 seconds, the announcers always have something to say (3 hours a game, 162 games!). Not so in the usual marathon coverage.

The announcers we constantly recycle from event to event, network to network are not up to par.

TdF actually does make a good example.

FWIW I'm not in the media ...I was one of many volunteers helping the production staff just for those 2 events.

i'm benumbed by sports announcers who seem to be paid by the word...yapyapyapyapyapyapayap...alot of inane(trautwig are you listening) wind.

i wish they'd just be silent now and then and let us drink in the race without barrages of stats that most will never remember nor care about.

Volunteers who are runners are the best people to report on marathons. That's why I like Flotrack, Runner Space, they know the runners, and get the photos and videos and interviews that are important for the sport.

The issue has as much to do with the current televised broadcast environment as it has to do with the very nature of marathon races. There may be more channels than ever via satellite but that also means tighter competition for ad dollars. Something like what they use for pro soccer might work, with scrolling ads across the bottom and/or top of the screen.

To tell the truth, I do not mind that marathons are broadcast live on television. The format just is not suited to the event, or vice versa. The way that WCSN and NBC have been doing it via webcasting has been great. No commercial interruptions, ads are outside of the video screen. I don't think that any network would be willing to take that kind of a risk in going with no commercial breaks for something like a marathon race. Webcasting is the way to go for distance race coverage, embrace it as the best we should expect. If webcasting of marathon races proves popular enough, then network execs would naturally consider moving it to television. So long as it retains nothing more than niche viewership then there is no sense in pondering how to make marathons work on television.

Edit: "I do not mind that marathons aren't broadcast live on television."

[quote]Runningart2004 wrote:

The sport of marathon running is horrible for TV. How do we fix it?

Hire a Japanese Television film crew to produce it and let Toni Reavis do the commentary with his own team.

How about a kill switch in which the producer can immediately cut to the action on the course for a major event, such as the breaking up of a big pack? My recollection from London 2008 was that there was a post-race reference to whoever was in fourth not being able to go with the big break, which, of course, was never shown because they were talking about the British women.

I believe that NASCAR now has such a switch. You can be in commercial, and they'll cut back to the race if there's a crash/yellow flag. That helps the guys with the commercials because they know that people aren't going to complain about their commercials making them miss important stuff during the race. And then the commercial can run during the yellow flag.

How difficult is it to have someone count the gaps by timing, say, from when the leader crosses a cross-walk or a shadow on the road to when the pack does. Camera angles are deceptive, but isn't key information whether the gap is opening or closing? I can do it if the cameras let me.

And speaking of Boston, why did we need to have a running clock with hundreds of a second? Just annoying clutter.

tesba

Running is how our ancestors caught food and fled predators.. it's not a sport.

The problem as I see it are belly achers like yourself who make a career out of crying and whining about how things should be, while hundreds of volunteers spend their own resources donating their time to the BAA, NYRRC, and so forth. They volunteer as journalists, programmers, statisticians, videographers, photographers, and so forth. They buy their own microphones, voice recorders, cameras, computers, lenses, video cameras, and so forth. They pay for their own air fare, hotel, food, rental car, and so forth. They bring the public the coverage marathons deserve through their own sweat. Why not join us at marathons in Boston, New York, Chicago, San Diego, Phoenix, and so forth. It's better than complaining all of the time.