I hate FOX BCS telecasts

[Jens1893]

http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2008/01/foxs-orange-bowl-production-by-numbers.html

Wow....where do you even start with this traveshamockery? How about I give you the Math and then we'll go to the videos. I noted that the Fiesta Bowl featured 58 individual shots of the respective team's bands yesterday, and most people (including myself) were amazed. There's so many more shots you could go to right? Well that was nothing. With the help of some of AA's favorite readers we tracked the total for the Orange Bowl and the numbers are staggering.....

Pregame 5 (Both Teams)

1st Half

Kansas 34
VT 16
First Half Total = 55

2nd Half

Kansas 37
VT 18
Second Half Total= 55

Grand Total of Only Band Shots = 110

One Hundred and Ten people. 110?!?!?! One hundred and ten specific shots devoted to each team's individual bands. Not the mascots, the players, the announcers or coaches.....the bands. Every single positive yardage play by the offense they went to a shot. Every single great defensive play the went to the shot. Every single.....end of the quarter they went to, um nothing???

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnZn4ZmvjBE"]YouTube - asdf[/ame]

What is she doing? I have no idea, but you had shots like that for about 50% of your entire broadcast. I think this quote from Fox Sports Head David Hill back in 2006 (Via reader Will) might have something to do with all of this......

Fox Sports head David Hill, at a meeting Monday with Fox affiliates, said Fox won't try "to reinvent the wheel" when it inherits each BCS game except the Rose Bowl, which will remain on ABC. Then he brought out the UNLV band to play what will be Fox's college football theme music and announced, "I love the bands."

Yeah you do. Yeah you f'ing do David. More on the announcing team and other nonsense tomorrow.

 

[NW Buff]

While I think that Fox does a decent job with NFL games, they just don't seem to get the differences with the college game. I am not sure that I can even put my finger on it but the telecasts have seemed sterile compared to ABC/ESPN & CBS. Even the local Fox channels seem to do a better job.

 

[Duff Man]

They just don't understand the college game. There should 8-10 shots of hot college girls in every broadcast.

 

[sackman]

It's weird because the regional fox sports channels do a pretty good job, IMO.

 

[buffsyko]

Fox sports sucks.They should stick to the NFL.The guy last night I believe it's marv alberts brother with the uni-brow and marty feldman eyes is horrific.

They are horrible and PLEASE,someone get the doofus from worst damn sports show off the TV.He thinks he's all that.

 

[leftybuff]

I agree. I wish ABC still had the gig.

 

[96 Buff]

I liked the announcers for the Fiesta Bowl.

That said, even one shot of the goddamn band is too many.

 

[CarolinaBuff]

It really doesn't make any sense for Fox to be carrying the BCS games when they don't have any college football during the regular season. I'm surprised that ABC lost it, but they apparently got out-bid. And some of these guest co-hosts they have on the set? Fran Tarkenton, John Riggins? Come on.

 

[Jens1893]

It really doesn't make any sense for Fox to be carrying the BCS games when they don't have any college football during the regular season. I'm surprised that ABC lost it, but they apparently got out-bid. And some of these guest co-hosts they have on the set? Fran Tarkenton, John Riggins? Come on.

It is a little strange to have the showcase games of the College FB calendar on a network that shows **** all College FB during the regular season. And then why doesn´t FOX let the guys who cover CFB for the FSN Regionals call the BCS games? The other guys are terrible and it´s odd when you´re not familiar with the guy´s voice. This would be like if the NFL Playoffs were on ABC and they had their basketball crews doing the football games.

 

[MiamiBuffs]

While I think that Fox does a decent job with NFL games, they just don't seem to get the differences with the college game. I am not sure that I can even put my finger on it but the telecasts have seemed sterile compared to ABC/ESPN & CBS. Even the local Fox channels seem to do a better job.

There are people here who bitch about every announcer on ESPN/ABC (you know who you are!). Fact is, ABC/ESPN/CBS have much more depth to their presentation of the game then Fox does. Sterile is the right word and using NFL people makes it feel....wrong.

 

[2HellNback]

I guess you can kinda clump FSN with Fox telecasts, but I just don't understand how a network gets all of the big games when they don't support college football virtually the entire season, yet capture the big stage all the way to the bank... ABC is college football, I can't imagine they are too happy that Fox has the rights to 4/5 BCS.

 

[Jens1893]

This is from the CNNSI article I talked about in the other thread

Television Influence

The first official proposal to move to a plus-one was made not by Slive or any of the other commissioners, but by a since-retired television executive. In February 2004, at a meeting in Miami, a group of presidents from the BCS and non-BCS schools -- with the help of NCAA president Brand -- stunned officials across the sport by agreeing on their own to a revised BCS format that added a fifth bowl and loosened eligibility requirements for champions from conferences without automatic bids. (Boise State and Hawaii's berths the past two seasons were made possible by the agreement.)

Unexcited by the seemingly watered-down system, ABC senior vice president for programming Loren Matthews -- whose network's original, eight-year deal with the BCS was about to come up for renewal -- proposed an alternative plan at the BCS' meetings in Phoenix two months later involving a pure plus-one.
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When BCS officials balked, Matthews, whose network had seen its ratings for the non-championship BCS games decline and claimed to have lost money on its original investment -- chose to re-up solely with the Rose Bowl, paying a reported $300 million to air the eight Rose Bowl games and two national-title games to be played in Pasadena from 2007-14. Fox stepped in to claim the rights to the Fiesta, Sugar and Orange bowls, paying a reported $320 million for the 2007-10 games (which includes three championship games). The deal represented a meager five percent spike from what ABC had been paying.

Both the BCS and Fox have been pleasantly surprised by the newly forged relationship. Following initial concerns about Fox's ability to promote the games without any regular-season college football package, last year's Ohio State-Florida championship game drew a 17.4 rating, the third-highest of the nine BCS title games played to date. Fox reportedly sold nearly all its ad time for the four 2008 bowls (at a cost of $500,000 for a 30-second commercial, $900,000 during the championship game) before the teams were even announced.

At least one of Matthews' concerns has come to fruition. The three BCS bowl games to date involving non-BCS teams -- Utah-Pittsburgh (2005), Oklahoma-Boise State (2007) and Georgia-Hawaii (2008) -- have produced three of the four lowest-rated broadcasts in BCS history. That hasn't seemed to deter Fox's enthusiasm.

"We love the relationship," said Fox Sports President Ed Goren, whose network's coverage has included live pregame shows from all four bowls and a dramatically enhanced BCS Selection Show. "It's our top priority to extend the relationship, whatever format it ends up."

Meanwhile, ABC/ESPN -- whose season-long ads this season proudly proclaimed that "College Football Lives Here" -- is itching to reclaim its stranglehold on the postseason. Matthews retired in 2006. His replacement, Chuck Gerber, executive vice president for college sports programming, has hinted at regret over ceding the BCS rights to Fox. ("Some of those who made those decisions are no longer in the same positions they were then," he recently told the New Orleans Times-Picayune.)

"I've said to [the commissioners] on behalf of ESPN and ABC that we'd be interested in getting back in the BCS business," Gerber told SI.com.

Four years after accepting a lowball offer from Fox just to keep its product afloat, BCS officials could find themselves at the center of a bidding war next time around. (Fox has an exclusive negotiating window before other networks could make a bid.) Analysts have estimated a plus-one model could generate an additional $40 to $50 million annually, about a 50 percent hike from the current deal.

Both Goren and Gerber said they are content with the current format -- but it's no secret their ratings would benefit from an added layer to the postseason.

"There's a difference between making a suggestion and trying to force policy," said Gerber. "We were supportive of the plus-one the last time around. If the Rose Bowl decides they want to be part of it, we're going to find a way to make sure our agreement [can be revised]. But it's not going to be up to us to convince them to go one way or the other."

Added Gerber: "I think the fan base is going to get them to have to seriously consider making some sort of switch to a plus-one."

ABC's degree of flexibility could play a key role in determining whether the Big Ten/Pac-10/Rose Bowl ultimately soften their plus-one stance, as officials from all three parties consistently cite their extended contract with the network as a mitigating factor. "We've got an eight-year deal between the Big Ten and the Pac-10 and the Rose Bowl and ABC," Delany told SI. "We intend to honor that agreement."

 

[BuffSax]

Being a former band member, I thought it was pretty cool that the bands got so much airtime. I know it might seem boring to everyone else, but to me it was cool seeing what the CU band never got in airtime.

 

[BinaryBuff]

My bitch with FOX and their coverage has been that they do very, very few replays of plays, especially key ones. Instead, they'll break off to show players running on and off the field... I get kinda pissed when the only way I can see a replay of a controversial play/penalty call is by rewinding on my DVR...it shouldn't come to that.

Not sure what the issue is though, since FOX doesn't have any problems showing replays when doing NFL.

Ugh, I miss these games being on ABC

 

[azbuff]

The Fox Networks suck in every respect. Not only is the quality of programming much worse, but the Fox picture absolutely sucks. How can their HD look worse than every other networks' HD? How is that even possible?

And if you're watching Fox and its not in HD, the picture is so bad that you're stuck in a time warp back to the mid-80s and wondering how the **** Hawaii is playing Georgia in the Sugar Bowl.