The Sports Media Thread

[JayMac]

9 hours ago, neo_prankster said:

Now that the NHL is (finally) coming to TNT, who will join Ernie Johnson on Inside the NHL?

I'd like to see Charles Barkley talk about hockey.

[Digby]

24 minutes ago, JayMac said:

I'd like to see Charles Barkley talk about hockey.

This is a very predictable crossover event, given all the self mythologizing they’ve been doing about Inside the NBA, and I hate it.

 

Speaking of, Candace Parker needs to be on the flagship nights for that show in Shaq’s place next year.

[Sport]

I don't even know who the hockey equivalent of Charles Barkley would be. NBC thought it might be Jeremy Roenick, but instead of being an affable dumbass who occasionally says smart things in a funny way (Barkley), he was just a dumbass. Anybody in the hockey world who managed to come out of their playing career with a shred of personality left are like the Spittin' Chiclets barstool types and I wouldn't want that on a nightly show. The smarter move than trying to recreate the NBA on TNT studio show thing is find something new that works for its own authentic reasons. 

 

edit: and this has nothing to do with anything, but why did NBC always put the guys behind a standing desk? Give them chairs, make them comfortable. 

[Kramerica Industries]

Chuck has spoken about his interest in hockey many times before. Him making cameos on any kind of Turner studio programming is, yes, predictable, but given that interest, I don't think it would be a bad idea. In theory, at least. Obviously if you oversaturate it then the appeal will likely be quickly lost.

 

Otherwise, just because Turner has Inside the NBA doesn't mean there's any obligation to try and create a hockey version of it. Pre- and post-game shows in general aren't exactly the kind of programs that people tend to watch very much or very often. About the only time I've ever kept NBC or even local Lightning post-game shows on has been when there's either nothing else worth watching on television, or if it's the playoffs. And it's hardly a known secret that people don't watch Inside the NBA for much in terms of actual basketball analysis, either. It's the personalities that have sold that show, and that's always been the case. The day Chuck calls it quits is the day that shows loses a lot of it's caché. 

 

(And don't forget the flip side of this equation when it comes to Turner. This is the same company that, in more recent times, was responsible for probably the worst bit of studio-related programming I can remember when they had the Champions League rights. Between the studio, the manner in which they used their analysts, and other stuff related to that, it was a trainwreck. I have plenty of irritation with how CBS shunts games in favor of...some show involving Tiki Barber...but their studio programming is 10x more professional than what Turner and B/R were producing, and that's not even hyperbole.)

 

We probably know how most of this ends up. A few of the current NBC commentators and studio crew will end up with ESPN, more of them at Turner, the rest settling with their current RSN agreements, and any kinds of pre- and post- shows, should there really be any - you know ESPN isn't going to bother with this - will probably be as generic then as NBC's are now. "Hockey player" and "personality" don't belong in the same sentence, and to insinuate that any of them have a personality would generate a green squiggly line underneath like the kind you get in Word when your sentence makes zero sense. A hockey Charles Barkley, or even a hockey Kenny Smith, don't exist, so don't waste your time trying to force one into existence. 

[Digby]

that weird TNT Champions League era was so abrupt and bad that I thought any more new sports were way off the table, one reason this NHL move surprised me.

 

Too bad for them that Steve Nash got a real job!

[buzzcut]

18 hours ago, Digby said:

I think NBC has done a pretty good job with their non-NFL sports so it’s too bad they’re losing them all (except shunting EPL to a pay service lol). I hope American Ninja Warrior and auto auctions do well for them instead.

If the Premier League escapes, there will be more than just a few executives whose heads are going to roll.

[The_Admiral]

6 hours ago, Sport said:

I don't even know who the hockey equivalent of Charles Barkley would be. NBC thought it might be Jeremy Roenick, but instead of being an affable dumbass who occasionally says smart things in a funny way (Barkley), he was just a dumbass. Anybody in the hockey world who managed to come out of their playing career with a shred of personality left are like the Spittin' Chiclets barstool types and I wouldn't want that on a nightly show.

 

This is how it always seems to go. "The NHL needs to be more like the NBA, no, not like that." What do people want ex-jocks to be?

[Red Comet]

Just get me one season of Gary Thorne and Bill Clement and I’ll be happy.

 

Or hell, put Steve Levy on lead broadcasts. 

[Crabcake]

1 hour ago, Red Comet said:

Just get me one season of Gary Thorne and Bill Clement and I’ll be happy.

 

Or hell, put Steve Levy on lead broadcasts. 

Absolutely.  I haven't watched an NHL game on national NBC in a minute so I'm assuming they just slotted Kenny Albert to the top crew in place of Doc?  If so then that's a large downgrade.  Honestly Thorne is maybe the only announcer in the business who wouldn't be a downgrade from Doc, but even though I enjoy Kenny Albert in general (especially on Fox NFL), I feel like he doesn't translate as well to hockey.  Not sure why either, he just seemed kinda flat the times I've listened to him (although maybe I just got used to Doc's over-the-top style).

 

TL;DR ESPN needs to bring back Gary Thorne to give the NHL a proper leading voice after Doc.

[MJWalker45]

5 hours ago, buzzcut said:

If the Premier League escapes, there will be more than just a few executives whose heads are going to roll.

Nope, they'll just move to whoever gets the deal, just like they did at ESPN and Fox. It's annoying that Alexi Lalas gets to just rotate between networks for USMNT and MLS. Listening to Taylor Twellman call the Carabao Cup instead of the BBC team was annoying. 

[BBTV]

I've never seen Keith Jones on a national broadcast but if his tv personality is anything like his sports radio one then he'd be a good one to start with.

[Kramerica Industries]

4 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

This is how it always seems to go. "The NHL needs to be more like the NBA, no, not like that." What do people want ex-jocks to be?

 

Well, for starters, I would die of shock to see any ex-NHL'ers - or any current NHL'ers for that matter - talking on social matters in the way that the ex- and current NBA players do. Without trying to take this into a political realm, all I'll say is that it's not exactly a secret that the average NBA player, and the average NHL player, tends to see these things in different ways. I mean, sure, they'll tweet their support when it's the correct PR move, but look through some of these guys' Twitter likes and follows and a great majority of them don't practice what they retweet. 

[The_Admiral]

You didn't answer my question. What do you want an NHL studio show to look like?

 

I will say that the reputation of NHLers has really plummeted over the last fifteen to twenty years, which is quite a feat considering that more than any other league they've spent that entire timespan on the ass end of labor negotiations. Where they were once considered the most relatable and down-to-earth professional athletes, they're now seen -- if you ask Deadspin, blue-check Twitter, and whoever else gets to dictate the terms to the rest of us -- as the same kind of antisocial menace that NBA players were once perceived as, but worse, because now they're dropouts, rapists, drug addicts, and white supremacists. They probably can't all be that bad, just as today's NBA players might not be the deepest and gentlest souls who ever walked the earth after all. I fear that the aforementioned culture apparatus will poorly receive any kind of studio show they do with ex-players. It's a mug's game. The only thing that will make them madder than not being the NBA is poorly attempting to be the NBA. 

[Red Comet]

Social media is cancer and I have never had my opinion of someone improve after reading their social media feed. 

[Kramerica Industries]

1 hour ago, the admiral said:

You didn't answer my question. What do you want an NHL studio show to look like?

 

I will say that the reputation of NHLers has really plummeted over the last fifteen to twenty years, which is quite a feat considering that more than any other league they've spent that entire timespan on the ass end of labor negotiations. Where they were once considered the most relatable and down-to-earth professional athletes, they're now seen -- if you ask Deadspin, blue-check Twitter, and whoever else gets to dictate the terms to the rest of us -- as the same kind of antisocial menace that NBA players were once perceived as, but worse, because now they're dropouts, rapists, drug addicts, and white supremacists. They probably can't all be that bad, just as today's NBA players might not be the deepest and gentlest souls who ever walked the earth after all. I fear that the aforementioned culture apparatus will poorly receive any kind of studio show they do with ex-players. It's a mug's game. The only thing that will make them madder than not being the NBA is poorly attempting to be the NBA. 

 

Well, as I said in another post on this page, I never really care to watch studio shows anyway, so if you're asking me personally, I don't particularly care. That NBC is super generic deserves a little credit just because ESPN had one non-pre or post-game studio show back in the day, on ESPN2, and that was pretty much it. That NBC has always done pre- and post-game shows with their coverage can either be seen as a sign of how little useful programming they really have otherwise, or how many times ESPN felt the need to jam SportsCenter editions down our throats. Or both, I suppose.

 

Regardless, me dismissing the question with an "I don't care" response doesn't help the discussion. I dunno, John Tortorella will probably be out of a job in a few weeks. He did some work with HNIC for a time when he was between coaching jobs with the Lightning and Rangers many years ago. The players might not provide much in the way of personality, but Brian Burke was a hit when he was working for HNIC. Of course, you could get a Burkie or you could get a Milbury in the process of doing that (and I'm guessing most people these days think of Milbury more as a horrendous executive than him as a player or coach even). You're also fighting a more basic problem of that fewer people in America care about hockey than they do about basketball. You'll get enough basketball fans who will say "sure, I'd love to see what nonsense Chuck is up to tonight" to get justifiable ratings. Will you get that with hockey? If the answer is no - and the answer definitely isn't yes - then you aren't going to waste money, chasing some great studio commentary team, that isn't going to get the results you want it to get. 

 

I'd love a studio show that allowed for a little bit of focus on strategic breakdowns and allowing ex-players or coaches to explain certain things that happened and why they did, personally. I'd watch the hell out of a show like that. But that show will never be a ratings success, so to hope for something like that is just wasting time. Even NHL Network doesn't do that stuff; it's mostly just reruns of the previous nights games, reruns of On The Fly, simulcasts of RSN broadcasts, and (if you count the original, live On The Fly), three actual hours in total of live, original programming. And there's probably a really good reason for that.

[Digby]

Very busy sports calendar right now but CBS Sports Network has been on a professional pickleball marathon tonight.

[DG_ThenNowForever]

23 minutes ago, Digby said:

Very busy sports calendar right now but CBS Sports Network has been on a professional pickleball marathon tonight.

 

Pickleball enthusiasts will be sure to tell you it's the fastest growing sport in the United States!

[Sec19Row53]

5 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

Pickleball enthusiasts will be sure to tell you it's the fastest growing sport in the United States!

Gonna be the next big thing when all those kids playing it are adults 

[DEAD!]

12 minutes ago, DG_ThenNowForever said:

 

Pickleball enthusiasts will be sure to tell you it's the fastest growing sport in the United States!

*drops bocce ball*

[Digby]

I don’t even get why it’s played at a faux-pro level. Just play tennis...?