Would a cycling type time trial with elite runners going off at say 15-30sec intervals be any more exciting? Send the predicted slowest out first and Kipchoge/Bekele last.
It would no longer be a race but just about everybody who is sub-elite time trials marathons anyway..
Def not graphics. During the most important times of the race they would put up a graphic about the elevation of the hills or Desi's 6 Boston runs. That should be done at the beginning, or just spoken of. And they would just have this block of the most elementary graphic on the screen for the longest time. They missed the last of the Kawauchi fartleks.
They need more zoomed in closeups of agony in the face, of the anxiety of whether one goes to cover a move or not. They seem to think we don't want to see the elites running, but we do. We could have closeup, slow motion playbacks for certain moves, while they're still in the pack and not much is going on, like the way all other sports are covered.
Split screen is good. No triple screen. Who needs to see wave after wave of hobby joggers in the rain? You can't recognize anyone and again, we get the point.
Also, better announcers who know the history but don't have to rely on 1940 anecdotes. Instead they would actually know who the runners are and have interesting tidbits on them, like the citizen runner's average work day.
I watched the production of the Boston Marathon this morning. I thought it was pretty good. Better than a lot of productions I have seen.
They did do a good job with split screens and a ticker as I like.
They could have done a better job giving splits and letting the viewer know how far along they are on the course.
Wouldn't it be easy to put a gps device on a number and have that info easy all along the route for the elite runners? They could have given a constant ticker with the distance and how far behind the leader different people were.
The dude who did XC skiing at these last Olympics is a pretty great announcer. Him and the guy who does the sliding sports, where everything/one about to slide down on ice is epic and about to do it, etc.
Best way to improve TV broadcasts of marathons (or track meets)? Simple DON'T let Masback be part of it
Badly needed.
"mintues per mile pace" stat for USA viewers.
I totally agree with the posters complaining about the tv people in charge of what images the viewers see ( from the multle cameras ).
The person deciding what we see must be very savvy with the marathon.
If they miss breaks, then that 's like missing goals in soccer matches. And, if the break is successful, it's like missing the winning goal.
It's no use having experts commentating, if the producers are amateurs.
Indeed, why not let the commentators choose the shots they think suit the moment.
After watching the Marathons which take place in Japan they seem to do most everything right, lets copy them!
See MotoGP or F1 graphics, and adapt to road racing.
fisky wrote:
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.
Interesting thought. If every runner had a cellular-equipped GPS watch, then they could start showing some really interesting data instead of just 5k splits and rough eyeball guesses.
The heart rate thing isn't all that interesting, though. You can't interpret an athlete's heart rate unless you have a history of reviewing it. Just showing raw BPM to a general audience would lead to a lot of confusion. Also, in a marathon, HR doesn't typically increase as a runner starts to struggle. Usually muscle damage forces a runner to slow, and the HR decreases.
Before trying anything creative, it would make sense to just nail the fundamentals. To me that means that (1) the cameras cannot miss the break, and (2) we need better announcers.
The announcers need to actually know the field. It's clear that in the U.S., they rarely do, especially with African athletes. If you don't actually know the athletes' stories and where they're coming from, then it's far less exciting. One of the reasons that I enjoy watching USAs so much is that I'm so much more familiar with the athletes. It heightens the drama. You need to know whether a race is an athlete's comeback, his shot at redemption, his rematch against a rival, his chance to cement his legacy, his first chance on the big stage, etc. There are a million sports narratives that make a race interesting, but you need more than just the race times for the narratives to work. I'll admit, this takes a significant amount of work. Maybe it's just not worth the networks' time to invest in getting announcers to be educated. It's hard to know, though, because there's obviously a feedback cycle. Bad announcing leads to lack of interest, which leads to a lack of investment in good announcing.
One issue with the announcing, however, has nothing to do with resources. There's a complete lack of enthusiasm. There's no excuse for a sports announcer sounding totally bored by what's happening. They need to convey energy and excitement in their voices. That goes a long ways towards convincing the viewer that what they're watching is, in fact, exciting.
halllolooya wrote:
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.
ABC used to do this when they covered NYC (and Rotterdam once).
I was watching a live stream on and off at school- when Kawauchi took the lead they weren't showing the men's race and one of the commentators said that he took the lead (the other commentator just kind of ignored it and went on listening to himself talk.
I significantly improve all running coverage by pushing the mute button on my remote.
800dude, I agree. Get the basics right first. No question more information can be interesting and useful, but without someone knowledgeable to put the info in context, there is no point.
Definitely also need more cameras for chase groups or individuals, as well as mile and/or kilometer splits with projected finish times and gap times to leader. Basically, just emulate the TdF coverage in every way.
800 dude wrote:
fisky wrote:
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.
Interesting thought. If every runner had a cellular-equipped GPS watch, then they could start showing some really interesting data instead of just 5k splits and rough eyeball guesses.
The heart rate thing isn't all that interesting, though. You can't interpret an athlete's heart rate unless you have a history of reviewing it. Just showing raw BPM to a general audience would lead to a lot of confusion. Also, in a marathon, HR doesn't typically increase as a runner starts to struggle. Usually muscle damage forces a runner to slow, and the HR decreases.
No way! They can't, or should never, force the runners to wear any gear that they don't normally use on their own.
Camera-wise, copy Eurosport.
Announcer-wise, use Leigh Diffey and Chad Salmela.
And never let Trautwig, Rawson, Lewis or Masback near the sport again. Hutchings can be the roving guy.
I have NO idea on producers, though. It's clear that the worst producer NBC can dig up is always on the running events, or they're doing that in addition to some other show that's also on.
Study the Tour de France coverage. Knowledgeable and excitable announcers. Overhead helicopters. Continual stats on who is up front, distance to chase groups, etc. Ability to keep up with multiple splits in the field.
Hire Phil Liggett and/or Chad Semela (the guy who calls nordic skiing during the Olympics). That alone might be enough. That guy made biathlon captivating, he sure as heck could do the same for a marathon.