Monday, August 31, 2009

Note to ESPN commentators: Keep up!

Tonight, Mary Carillo, Pam Shriver and Chris Fowler had a lengthy conversation about whether it is fair for the women to always get the first night match at the U.S. Open. The discussion went on and on, but the problem is--the procedure has already been changed. As of this year, the women will not automatically play the first night match.

I'm sure I'm not the only fan who knows this, but why, oh why, don't the commentators know it?

Speaking of commentary, there were numerous glitches this morning with the new U.S. Open website live streaming. Most of them appear to have been fixed, however, and the video is crisp and easy to watch. So far, the commentary is very good, too.

It was hard to believe that live matches were shown on both ESPN2 and Tennis Channel most of the day. In the U.S., one generally has to have Direct TV or ESPN 360 to be able to watch several different matches during a major. My problem today, however, was limiting the number of matches I could realistically watch.

2 comments:

Todd Spiker said...

Yeah, I was hoping one of them would mention that the rule had been changed, and then they could debate what might happen if the men's match was played first and it turned out to be a 5-set, 4:30 contest... would the women's match be moved to Armstrong, played on Ashe starting at midnight or later, or delayed until the next day?

Alas, no such luck.

Maybe it was some sort of corporate synergy thing. ABC has that show "FastForward" this fall, where people momentarily see into the future. Maybe this was a try-out for a spinoff series called "FlashBack?"

Oh, well, I tried. :)

Diane said...

None of them was going to say it because none of them--as is often the case--had a clue.