NBC is evil. Nothing has changed since the French Open. ESPN does not show women's matches unless someone named Williams or Oudin is playing in them. In many cases, they do not show even parts of other matches. This morning, in the U.S., we were able to watch most of Oudin and Radwanska, and Williams and Hantuchova. That was it. No Petrova and Azarenka, no Wozniacki and Lisicki, no Razzano and Schiavone.
In my time zone, ESPN's non-broadcast (I did get to see Federer) ended at 9 a.m. But NBC's broadcast did not begin until 10 a.m. It didn't matter. While live matches were taking place, NBC showed the third set of the Federer-Soderling match, then went directly to the Williams-Ivanovic match. And once again, there are matches that ESPN is not allowed to show, so people who want to see them are forced to watch them after the fact on NBC.
This viewers' nightmare is almost identical to what we had to go through during the French Open. I say "almost" because it is worse: ESPN and NBC also conspired to deny U.S. viewers the right to purchase Wimbledon Live. When we had Wimbledon Live, a great service, it didn't matter what kind of shenanigans ESPN and NBC were up to--we could watch good matches. I like Radio Wimbledon, but it would be nice to actually see Wimbledon matches.
6 comments:
Pardon me as well for being rude, but I have not seen more than what? 5 minutes of the top seed: Dinara Safina play on ESPN. Am I missing something or am I recording on my DVR every bit of coverage? This sucks, is tennis channel better if you have it? Long story short I have it at home but my roommate didn't get it this summer, and I feel it's too late with the second week starting that it's not worth it. Let me know if you have Tennis channel and are faring better. Sorry for the long comment. LOVE your blog! -Peter Childs
Everyone has a preference who they would like to see playing tennis on tv. NBC is not evil, their showing the matches that they want their viewers to see.
Diane, agreed. PERIOD. Oh, and thanks for the heads up about the Tennis channel for Wimbledon. At the French it seemed better.
Peter, Tennis Channel shows highlights only, after the fact, so you're not missing a lot. And thank you!
Anon, for NBC to create two contracts--one that prevents ESPN from showing matches live, and the other that prevents viewers from buying Wimbledon Live--is indeed rotten. So is showing players from only one nation. And--using your logic--a sports medium is supposed to show what its viewers want to see.
(corrected for a typo and re-posted)
ESPN's coverage is not much better. They show commercials whenever they feel like it, whether the match is going or not, and cut to their in-studio commentators repeatedly instead of showing live matches.
How on earth is the sport supposed to pick up new fans when the coverage is so poor? Would they ever cover basketball or football the way they do tennis? I think not.
It's pretty sad when those of us who want to watch the live match instead of the commentators have to find it streaming online.
Completely ridiculous. I wish there were some way for the fans to make their frustrations known.
This morning, I put my TV on to ESPN, and in the space of three minutes, commentators made five factual errors. If I did my job like that, I would have no business.
Post a Comment