I mentioned this on the other item that I thought the sound and the video were different. Good catch. And, yeah, put people on the plane. Hopefully, ESPN will for the World Cup in two years, where the logistics will be tougher and the potential for screw-ups higher.

Well... a lot cheaper for BBC, it's in Europe.

TV issues may be the least of the problems for the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. That's assuming, it's still in South Africa. Rumours continue that all the problems there could result in it being moved.

Will be in South Africa. No matter what.

Vegas for the That video right there is precisely why you foot the bill to send your announcers overseas (and LasFIBA Championships)

AA, I'm not your unofficial editor Jay, but shouldn't this be "That video right there is precisely why you foot the bill to send your announcers overseas (and Las Vegas for the FIBA Championships)?"

As I said on the earlier thread, that's the BBC radio feed, presumably running from an ISDN line that didn't come cheap for the Beeb.

Remember, the Euro tournaments are a 'crown jewel' of British broadcasting, meaning that the rights are guaranteed to the over-the-air networks. (That's why Andy Gray's in Bristol right now, since he's contracted to the satellite broadcaster that has EPL rights.)

You really can't expect ESPN to make the same investment as European broadcasters. At least, not yet.

They sent Dave O'Brian and Marcelo Balboa as well as JP Dellacamera and John Harkes to the World Cup in 2006. I really don't think it will matter much in South Africa because I don't think they get too many thunderstorms there.

It would have sufficied for me if ESPN just admitted, at one point during the outage, that the sound wasn't out, it's just they didn't have announcers in the stadium! I very much doubt most people that watch these matches realize that the announcers are in a cubicle in New England. ESPN apologized and handled it relatively peacefully, totally masking that their announcers were suffering the same problem we were. LAME.

@holgate.

Actually, yeah, I can expect ESPN to make the same investment. They're showing every single game live. Their profits are in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Why half-ass it?

And that one thing that has gotten me about Derrek Rae and Adrian Healey (and this really is the only thing) is when they have said, "Here in Vienna" or "Here in Basel" when they're not there. Other than that, they should be doing all soccer games on ESPN.

@Sedale.

Are you saying most people can't figure out that Andy Gray/Tommy Smyth didn't magically teleport from Bristol where he did studio/halftime stuff with Rece Davis and Julie Foudy during the 12:30 games to Switzerland/Austria so he could do color for the late games?