It's Official: Fox Broadcasts College Football To Remind Us to Be Thankful for ESPN
by T Kyle King on Jan 5, 2010 8:03 PM EST
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PrintAdmittedly, almost anything related to Georgia Tech makes me want to puke, but I'm watching the Orange Bowl pregame with the sound turned down, and when they brought in Furman Bisher to say a few words about Bobby Dodd and Homer Rice---unless he's assassinating the character of a Georgia head coach, Bisher can't string together seven words without mentioning either Bobby Dodd or Homer Rice---I thought I was going to have a Doug Gillett moment with my laptop.
Go 'Dawgs!
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Fox has unquestionably done the worst job in history of broadcasting major college football games.
Why a network that otherwise focuses exclusively on pro football and has no other college football broadcast rights chose to shell out megabucks for this deal mystifies me. All of their pregame analysts and their in-game broadcast team spend 100% of their time focusing on and calling pro games.
It’s a travesty to hear, in the biggest games of the year, announcers fumbling with the names of teams’ biggest stars or head coach. I swear that it would not surprise me on Thursday night to hear Thom Brenneman call Mark Ingram “Mike Ingram,” and the coach “Mark Saban.”
Pam Ward annoys and frustrates me as much as the next college football fan, but I’d rather have her announcing the BCS games than this crew. At least next year we’ll get Musberger calling national championship game, since it’ll be back to ESPN.
For the record...
I can’t stand NFL broascasts on Fox either – too many ’80 video game sound effects…“sssshhhhhwwwwwoooooosssssssh!”
yea, they just put Musberger back in carbonite to crack him out of his vault for next year
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
I don't remember where...
but I recall reading an article about how FOX actually bailed out the BCS by buying the rights to broadcast the games for 4 years. It was very interesting. FOX got a really good deal for what they probably reaped from it over the past 4 years. So, comparable to what ESPN is paying for the next go-around, I don’t think it was mega bucks, and I don’t think FOX wanted it as much as it was a case of “well… it’s there and it’s cheap; so we might as well.” I may be wrong here, but it’s a recollection of an article I read a while ago.
Found it
It was an article by Stewart Mandel (I know, I know. Mandel is an idiot. But like all well educated voting Americans watch both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, regardless of their party affiliation, yours truly reads many college football pundits, smart ones and idiots alike).
From the article:
The climate surrounding those negotiations four years ago was far different than today. In February 2004, the BCS’s presidential oversight committee and a coalition of presidents for the so-called “non-BCS” schools brokered the existing BCS model of five bowl games and greater access for the smaller-conference schools. Loren Matthews, then ABC’s chief college sports exec, feared declined interest in the new product. When his proposal to the BCS commissioners that spring for a “plus-one” game fell on deaf ears, ABC made a lowball offer to retain the BCS rights. (ABC was the sole broadcast partner for the BCS’s first eight years.)
Fox, despite no regular-season college football programming on its network, stepped in that fall with a higher, albeit still modest offer to take over the games. Essentially, it bailed out the BCS.
You have good news coming, my friend
ABC shows the National Championship Game this year. That’s due to the vagaries of the BCS contract in which ABC owns the rights if the game is played at the Rose Bowl.
This does however mean you’ll be subjected to Brent Musberger.
kyle, i dont know where to post this, but i have some suggestions:
a basketball schedule posted (ala the football one) and then baseball, along with gymnastics
2010 football schedule posted and a count down timer to the first game (if that isnt too hard).
and get rid of the advertisment )
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
Obviously, I can't do anything about the ads . . .
. . . and I’ll have to look into a countdown clock, but I’ll see what I can do about the basketball schedule.
Go 'Dawgs!
cool, with a new year, maybe time for a new look? was my thinking.
i don understand SB nations websites anyhow – they take up just th middle of my screen. Things look….busy perhaps.
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
Generally, the look is beyond my control . . .
. . . but, because the SB Nation model is based on community involvement, suggestions to the network through the main website (or through the Blog Huddle site) would be welcome.
Do me a favor, though . . . hit “refresh” or close your browser and reopen it. You should see a “next five/last five” basketball schedule box where the football schedule box used to be and the live scoring box from the basketball game should be at the top of the page. If it’s not there, let me know.
Go 'Dawgs!
basketball schedule is there....and UGA IS TRYING TO BEAT TECH WITH 1 to GO!
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
lol. there was this darn Axe ad that used to keep me from logging in as it covered the whole screen...
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
I took those ads as a compliment
For a while there, we were getting ads for Axe to make our skin irresistible to women and for Trojans To Go for . . . well, the next logical step in the progression after making our skin irresistible to women.
Assuming those ad placements were based on demographic research, I like to think that speaks well of MaconDawg’s and my readership.
Go 'Dawgs!
Something nice to come home to
having just returned home to oh my God I’m going to freeze to death temperatures, it was so nice to login and realize we beat tech in the sport created to occupy us between football & baseball AND Iowa (aka wow – they have a football team?) beat the wreck by a full 10 points in the Orange Bowl. What a lovely way to start the new year! Bring on the office tomorrow, nothing can spoil this good mood!
"Never refuse to do a kindness unless the act would work great injury to yourself, and never refuse to take a drink- under any circumstances." Mark Twain
Commentators vs. Broadcast - FOX vs. ESPN
My issue with FOX has more to do with the broadcast than the commentators. Don’t get me wrong, the FOX commentators were atrocious. But we all have our complaints about the ones on ESPN as well. At least the ESPN guys know their college football. The FOX guys are pathetic. And despite ESPN’s questionable journalistic integrity (which existed before the Mike Leach debacle), they do have a few decent commentators, and even one or two good ones. And the have Erin Andrews. Come on folks, who doesn’t like to watch Erin Andrews on TV? But one thing the EPN folks have perfected is the broadcast of a college football game. Those guys are pros. FOX’s broadcasts have been beyond awful. We’ve all read about the various stupid things FOX has done to the Orange, Sugar, and Fiesta bowls, and I know we’ll all be glad to see them go, but most of us would still rather mute our televisions when watching a football game, regardless of which channel it’s on. At least next year, when I’m watching it on mute, I can enjoy what I’m watching.
Side note: perhaps we can continue to let FOX broadcast all TCU games. The gratuitous shots of the TCU showgirls was great. It was borderline creepy, however. I imagined a FOX producer saying something to the effect of: “I want those cameras on the TCU chicks as often as possible.” They were totally shameless about it. At least if they’re going to go the route of “sex sells,” they went all the way.
Fox
The TCU girls were bumping and grinding pretty good. I can’t say I was shocked so much as riveted. I dropped my damn reading glasses four times and sprayed nasal mist in my ear. I miss Jill Arrington so bad that sometimes I cry on rainy days. Damn it all.
So wait,...
when Georgia is at home playing men’s hoops vs. Georgia Tech, and that game is even on TV, you are instead watching Fox’s pregame show for Georgia Tech/Iowa in the Orange Bowl?
the game was not on tv most anywhere i know of.
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
oh, and T Kyle doesnt much follow basketball, but does follow all of NCAA Div 1 A football
"Sometimes, you just can't get rid of a bomb." - batman
Thanks, tankertoad
That’s it exactly. I didn’t know the basketball game was being televised and I had the pregame show on because it’s almost impossible to get Fox to tell you when the dadgum game actually starts. I followed the basketball game on the computer while watching the football game on television.
Go 'Dawgs!
as a well informed man...
you could have always found out. Excuses are excuses one way or the other, it’s the results that matter.
And that isn't meant as a put down...
but we chose what we want, and what matters most to us. You had the choice of Georgia basketball, or a general college football game (and I hesitate to say bad one considering the teams involved, Fox broadcasting, and that it was just the “pregame” portion of the telecast). There’s nothing wrong with being more of a college football fan than a Georgia fan.
As a Georgia fan, ...
all Georgia athletic events trump Tech athletic events. It could college football vs. women’s tennis, and I’ll support a national championship caliber women’s tennis program. Wallace’s women are always an exciting bunch.
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