Stupid Sports Coverage Tricks
Last week the Versus Network made an unbelievably stupid call at the end of Sage 3 of the Tour of California Bike race. The race, which started in San Francisco and ended at the boardwalk in the California coastal town of Santa Cruz was running late. So at 7.p.m. Eastern time, with less then a mile to go, as the riders in the front were jockeying for position for the final sprint, Versus switched to a previously scheduled NHL Hockey pregame show!
The race leaders were literally less than two minutes from the finish line, but Versus felt that a hockey interview was more important for viewers to see. The actual game did not begin for another 10 minutes, so there was no reason for any fans to miss any action.
The race announcers on Versus did direct viewers to the web site where they could supposedly watch the end of the race online, but viewers who tried to do that reported that the site was difficult to navigate and had greatly slowed due to the increase in network traffic.
Versus issued a statement explaining that it had to switch away from cycling due to "contractual obligations." If that's really true, then the contracts need to be negotiated with a little more common sense.
This incident reminded many of the "Heidi Game" in 1968. With 65 seconds left in a Raiders/Jets NFL game, NBC switched over to the scheduled movie, "Heidi," causing viewers to miss the Raiders come back to score two touchdowns in the final minute.
I'm not complaining for myself since I watched the race coverage on TiVo several days later (my Tivo cut off the recording just as the network switched). But you'd think that under the circumstances Versus would have posted on their website the last few miles of the race as it should have been broadcast. But it's not there - just a 3 minute "highlights" of the whole race.
The race leaders were literally less than two minutes from the finish line, but Versus felt that a hockey interview was more important for viewers to see. The actual game did not begin for another 10 minutes, so there was no reason for any fans to miss any action.
The race announcers on Versus did direct viewers to the web site where they could supposedly watch the end of the race online, but viewers who tried to do that reported that the site was difficult to navigate and had greatly slowed due to the increase in network traffic.
Versus issued a statement explaining that it had to switch away from cycling due to "contractual obligations." If that's really true, then the contracts need to be negotiated with a little more common sense.
This incident reminded many of the "Heidi Game" in 1968. With 65 seconds left in a Raiders/Jets NFL game, NBC switched over to the scheduled movie, "Heidi," causing viewers to miss the Raiders come back to score two touchdowns in the final minute.
I'm not complaining for myself since I watched the race coverage on TiVo several days later (my Tivo cut off the recording just as the network switched). But you'd think that under the circumstances Versus would have posted on their website the last few miles of the race as it should have been broadcast. But it's not there - just a 3 minute "highlights" of the whole race.
posted by Dancar | 1:33 PM
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