How do you leave in the middle of a game to run commercials … while the game is still going on? NBC has been doing that on their coverage of Olympic soccer and they finally got burned. This morning during the Nigeria – Belgium match, Nigeria scored their second goal while NBC was on a commercial break. Thank goodness for the Telemundo coverage – they know how to treat a soccer game.
They’re doing the same with the marquee Brazil vs Argentina game. C’mon! I mean … if you’re going to commit to broadcast the game live … broadcast the game live. Otherwise – tape delay it and squeeze the commercials in without disturbing game action. Or just leave it to the Spanish stations.
The other thing is the color commentary is atrocious. Marcelo Balboa may sound coherent (which is a plus for most athletes) but his insight is laughable. He wonders why Belgium sat back and tried to defend against Nigeria while they didn’t against a powerhouse like Italy. I’ll tell you why – Nigeria is fast as shit. They counter-attack in seconds – not from long passes but from dribbling fast. Italy isn’t as fast and IMO shouldn’t be mistaken for their much more accomplished (and experiences) senior team.
Marcelo Balboa did all the US games for ESPN during the 2006 World Cup and he was just as bad there. He talks like he’s a coach and we’re the team, yelling and cajoling to try to make his point. Almost like he’s pissed. Dude – there’ no airplane passing by, and you’re doing the games from studio in New York. Talk to us like a normal analyst.
NBC – they suck at football and they suck at futbol. But they’re great at showing tape-delayed gymnastics and swimming!
UPDATE: it happened AGAIN – Argentina’s second goal – during commercial.
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Lol, shame to hear they’ve been messing with the airing of the matches over there… think you guys just have more commercials in EVERYTHING than we do here. I can never believe how often news stations or even stuff like the Daily Show break for ads. Here you’re only allowed breaks every 15 mins, so thats just one break if you’re watching a 30 min show (with ads at the top and bottom of the hour). Think they may be changing that soon tho
Football is definitely a sport not designed for tv advertisers tho! I mean Sky just about manage to squeeze every opportunity for a break as they can including after the players come out of the tunnel onto the pitch and are warming up. It pisses me off when you’ve sat through all the pre-match guff and you think ‘ok, finally, this is it’ the players walk out and ‘we’ll be right back’!! Now if thats annoying, taking a break while a goal is scored has gotta piss fans off!
Comment by Pete Kennedy — August 20, 2008 @ 11:34 am
That explains why Sky Sports News is in 4 segments per hour and the Premier League Preview/Review shows are always abruptly interrupted for commercials over here.
Typically, shows break for commercials at the top and bottom of every hour and 2-3 times in between. Sometimes they get creative like start the show with a bit of a cliff hanger, then do the introduction/theme song, then go to break, or only leave a 2 minute segment at the end with no commercial and just blend it into the show following. Which sucks for those of us who want to record the show so they can watch it later and fast forward through the commercials
– because the clocks are never perfect there’s almost always a sentence or two that gets cut off at the end, like “… and it looks like Russia will go ahead with their attack on …”
Comment by webadmin — August 22, 2008 @ 2:57 am