Another Set Of BCS Games, Another Set Of Bad Reviews For FOX
Friday, January 09, 2009
I seriously hate piling on in cases like this, and the video from last night almost stands on its own, buuuuuut FOX is getting absolutely destroyed this morning and I just have to talk about it. Most networks fail on just one thing when broadcasting Football. It's either the announcers not knowing what's going on, the camera crew can't keep up, or the production truck is behind. It's rare that a broadcast achieves even two out of those three, but that's where FOX's BCS games come in.
I'll get to my review in a second, but first I wanted to share what others, on both the Internet and in Print, are saying....
Richard Sandomir, NY Times: "Having to pay attention to two or four shots at once, live, with a play about to begin, is needless. Sometimes, Fox lingered too long in a four-shot, almost missing going to a full-screen for the snap. One particular shot in the quadruple screens — of coaches’ signals from the Oklahoma sideline — would have been useful to dissect as a replay; but in a quarter-screen, it looked like the coaches were playing pat-a-cake.Ever since the network took over the BCS, you could immediately tell that they were going about the production all wrong. On top of that, it has almost gotten worse over the last three years. The first problem is that the people in the booth don't get subjected to any College Football during the year. Sure you can follow along at home, but most NFL announcers are preparing all day Friday and Saturday for their game on Sunday. Now that isn't the case for every team that FOX put out there, and you would think Brennaman and Davis' work on the Big Ten Network would help them, but alas....it doesn't seem that it does.
Jerry Greene, Orlando Sentinel: "Brennaman settled down after a shaky start. Davis was decent. But a "no-frills" performance for the network's last title game anytime soon. Nothing special, nothing awful. Nothing to be missed."
TBL: "Can someone please check Thom Brennaman’s identification? Seriously. We’d like to see his social security card and passport. We firmly believe he is in some way related to Mountain-Mover/QB Tim Tebow."
Mel Bracht, Oklahoma News: "Brennaman and his Fox cohorts went overboard in gushing about how great a man Tebow is off the field. His comments would have been more fitting on a feature story than a game broadcast."
Fanhouse: "What I do know is this: Brennaman was so far over the top in his pro-Tebow hyperbole on Thursday that the game became darn-near unwatchable unless the volume was off. Not only did Brennaman go on and on about what a remarkable man Tebow is, but he backed Tebow against Oklahoma cornerback Dominique Franks -- who said Tebow would be no better than the fourth-best QB in the Big 12 -- stating that was "probably the most ridiculous statement ever said."
Neil Best, Newsday: "Fox's Thom Brennaman often seems to be doing a clever parody of an old-time sportscaster, except that he's serious. His outing with analyst Charles Davis for Fox's third and final BCS Championship Game was particularly amusing, especially his over-the-top deification of Tim (Superman) Tebow. My favorite moment came late in the game, when - just as it seemed Brennaman and Davis were ready to bronze Tebow on the spot - the saintly quarterback was flagged for taunting an Oklahoma player with one of those Gator chomp motions."
Spencer Hall, Sporting News: "Assumptions one should not make about this game: 1) Bob Stoops always loses big bowl games. Untrue. By the record, he only loses 66% of them. 2) All Big 12 defenses are uniformly awful. Inaccurate. This proves only that the defenses Oklahoma faces are uniformly awful, which means all Big 12 defenses save Oklahoma, which kept Florida's offense in check for most of the game. 3) Fox puts on an incompetent broadcast. No. Incompetent doesn't cover how inept their clodfooted work on the BCS has been."
The second problem is the sheer madness that is created between plays. The production truck is certainly talented because they can jump between 40 different shots between snaps, but their looks are beyond unnecessary. It's almost as if they enjoy the pomp and circumstance of the College environment rather than the actual game.
The biggest problem though? They don't listen. People have been saying the same things above for the past three years and the only thing that changed was that they showed us more cheerleaders this go around. Of course, none of this matters because FOX only has one more year of driving us crazy during Bowl Season. Thank God! Oh and one last thing.....EVERYONE IN THE WORLD KNOWS THAT THE CLOCK STOPS ON A FIRST DOWN IN COLLEGE FOOTBALL! If you want to tell us once, that's fine, but forty times is just downright maddening.
Oh and as far as Thom Brennaman goes, I think this screenshot of his Wikipedia page after the game, sums up his night perfectly (click for larger)....
(Wiki page edit "rumored" to have been done by this guy)
26 Comments:
Did you know Tebow lived with lepers? LEPERS?
The guys on First Take just took a subtle shot at Brennaman and Davis in their Tebow BJ.
I went to a theater last night and saw this in 3D... Fox used different announcers for the 3D telecast, which apparently must have been a blessing from what I'm reading this morning...
This ain't nothin' new. When CBS had Dallas Cowboys games (pre-Fox) the announcers were openly rooting for the Cowboys more often than not.
Also, "Oklahoma News" is actually the Daily Oklahoman newspaper from OKC.
The Fox broadcast was terrible. In Brennamen's defense, he is playing traffic cop with producers telling him to plug this show, this Directv contrivance, go to Chris Myers, etc. He can't even watch the GD game and all those distractions lead to major trainwrecks. The 3rd/4th and goal screwup was inexcusable. Fox directors also stunk it up. They failed to show replays and iso's because they are so enamored of between play band shots. Thank God Tebow's "Guardian Angel" was invisible in the stands! Think how much better that game would have been with Ron Franklin doing PxP. The mercurial Musberger and Herbie would have been had a ball. Fox sucks from top down.
Forget Thom's man love, how about his not knowing what down it was and taking 10 minutes to figure out what was going on. Of course the Sooners are going for it, jerk, it's only third down.
Loved it at the end when Fox couldn't even get the post-game interview with Tebow on the field. The camera tried to get near him only to reveal he was already talking into an ESPN microphone. Quick cut to another camera for Chris Myers chasing down Harvin for plan B.
When not curing lepers, Tebow spends his spare time walking on water.
Bias has always been Fox's problem. During baseball season they won't stop talking about the Red Sox and Cubs. During the NFL season it is the Cowboys. During the BCS, it is Florida and Tim Tebow. I hate how the BCS is technically going to cable as the deal was with ESPN and not ESPN on ABC, but at least ESPN can normally present the game well. Now only if Fox loses the MLB rights and it goes back to NBC, or another network that won't be as annoying and put little baseballs called scooter to tell us about the game.
I kept flipping channels in between plays for my sanity. That may have been the worst announcing I've heard for a major sporting event ever.
The only thing that comes close was Buck & McCarver during the '03/'04 playoffs spouting about Babe Ruth every 5 seconds. But at least those guys knew what was going on, whether you like them or not.
Thom & Davis were just plain incomptent.
And the studio show with those four knuckleheads may be the worst studio presentation on broadcast EVER.
Eight thumbs down. The BCS going to Fox is the best thing that ever happened for ESPN...they're going to take it back in two years like knights in shining armor and we (annoying blog nerds) will actually like them for once.
"Assumptions one should not make about this game: 1) Bob Stoops always loses big bowl games. Untrue. By the record, he only loses 66% of them.
Spencer Hall was so busy trying to be dickish/snarky/sarcastic, that he completely screwed up his math. OU won the '00 championship game, but lost to USC, LSU, and now Florida, meaning that they have lost 3 out of 4, or 75%
Everything that has been stated here about how nauseating this broadcast was is true, but I have not seen any comments about the incessent commercials. Yes, there are lots of commercials during all football broadcasts, but surely this was a step further. And having the Fed-Ex executives turn their introductory comments into commercials was incredibly tacky. We know why they sponsor the game. They don't have to shove it down our throats.
Yes Fox is bad at this and should never have been allowed to get the BCS, but I know ESPN does college football, but will they be better, most people feel they have ruined Monday Night Football, and there will be some people that will not get these games. I will be glad when Fox is done with this, and besides losing baseball, can they lose NASCAR too.
I don't think there is anything I can say that has not already been said about this abortion of a broadcast. It just baffles me that a whole production crew can lose count of the downs like they did. It was repulsive.
We need to get that screen shot of the OU band girl crying as the next Create-a-Caption. I soon as saw that I knew it would be on this site.
ESPN is just better at College Football.
Fox is only good at the NFL Period
You expected Spencer to be able to do basic math? He went to UF.
nobody should be surpised fox sucked at this they broadcast no regular season college football and should have never been allowed to bid in the first place if they weren't going to show regular season games .... what I don't get is if you produce NFL games all year how you can mess up production on the BCS
I understand Thhhom has a dad named Marty and they are both professional broadcasters.
Uh, I did not know that.
Latest from Wikipedia:
"Brennaman's life changed forever in January of 2009 when he met University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow. Although there have been mixed reports regarding the details of their meeting, it is known that Brennaman left as a better person - though he does now sport a noticable erection when in Tebow's presence or when he speaks about Tebow."
Brennaman was absolutely god awful. That FOX paid him is remarkable. He should be banned from sportscasting at least for the near future.
Now on his Wiki page:
"Brennaman was roundly criticized for being one-sided in his adulation of University of Florida QB Tim Tebow in the 2009 BCS Championship Game. He stated that even mentioning that Tebow may not be as good of a QB as Bradford, McCoy, or Harrell constituted the most ridiculous thing ever uttered. Brennaman, who frequently enjoys preaching from a soap-box with respect to personal fouls or running up the score (as he did when the Georgia Bulldogs had the audacity to throw the ball in the 3rd quarter against Hawaii in the 2008 Sugar Bowl), laughingly dismissed his beloved Tebow's Unsportsmanlike Taunting penalty near the end of the game."
Andrew Ross, I also saw the 3D broadcast, and despite the number of problems you had there, it does sound better than what everyone else saw, which just sounds appallingly bad.
I would have thought Brennaman to be a much bigger Julio Iglesias man than a Tim Tebow guy.
These comments brought to you buy the Dodge Rambox. Does Dodge think we're 12. His shirt says Fireman, I guess that's what he does. That and the worse officiating (not slanted either way just horrible) I've ever seen. I actually feel sorry for the ACC.
Has FOX ever been good with broadcasting sports? Ever? I mean, these are the same fools who brought us the 'glow puck' because hockey was too difficult to follow on television.
I almost want to believe it's an elaborately expensive prank by a network trying to get people to stop watching so much TV.
Fox must be mailing it in because I kept thinking it was really weird for the studio crew to not be in Miami in the corner of the end zone for the game. One more year of the BCS on Fox, thank god Pasadena is hosting next years title game so it can be shown on ABC.
you guys suck...you deserve what you get the next 4 years
As far as comments go about Tebow, I and many others find it refreshing to see a young man with character to receive praise. In this world of in-your-face-tatoos and sordid off-field behavior, it is great to have a nationally known sports figure that we actually like as a role model for young folks. It may be true that not much is said about the tatoo crowd other than how they play, their tatoos are like billboards validating the inmate look. Hyatt
Thom Brennaman had a raging Tebowner.