ESPN Moving To South Africa For World Cup
Monday, June 29, 2009
At the start of last year's NFL season, ESPN moved just about their entire operation to Green Bay for the first Monday nighter of the year. Well the "Leader" is planning to do the same thing for the World Cup next June, but with a small catch. It won't be one day....it will be for an entire month! Yes, all World Cup programming will be coming to you live from South Africa from June 11th to July 11th. Via ESPN PR....
ESPN will present all of its 2010 FIFA World Cup television studio programming from site in South Africa, offering U.S. sports fans the most comprehensive news and information coverage throughout the month-long soccer showcase (June 11 – July 11, 2010). Coverage of the quadrennial global event will include SportsCenter segments, nightly World Cup Live, and pre-, halftime and post-match shows, with additional studio programming and World Cup-branded segments, totaling more than 65 hours of coverage, originating from two sets in and around Johannesburg.It's always a good idea to be live at the event you're covering, but that certainly can't be cheap, especially when you're traveling halfway around the World. Also, if you're looking for three hosts for the coverage, you can't ever go wrong with Fowler, Tirico and the great Bob Ley. Great move by ESPN, if you ask me.
A trio of top-tier ESPN hosts, Chris Fowler (college football, Grand Slam tennis), Bob Ley (SportsCenter, Outside the Lines), and Mike Tirico (Super Bowl, NBA Finals, Final Four, major golf championships), will serve as on-site FIFA World Cup studio hosts. ESPN’s “game around the game” approach to South Africa 2010 will include live and taped segments that will air on ESPN International’s 13 localized versions of SportsCenter in eight different languages across the world.
South Africa 2010 will mark the first time in ESPN’s 30-year history that the entirety of its FIFA World Cup studio programming will originate on location from the site of the host country. Highlights of planned programs and 2010 FIFA World Cup-branded segments:
- SportsCenter at the FIFA World Cup;
- World Cup Live – the daily, 30-minute news, highlights and analysis program (30 episodes) aired each night of the tournament on ESPN or ESPN2;
- Live 30-minute pre-match, halftime (15 min.) and post-match shows on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2;
- World Cup segments on ESPNEWS, First Take on ESPN2, and Outside the Lines.
16 Comments:
I just hope that somehow Chris Berman gets AIDS from this venture.
what, no dave o'brien this time around?
dear me - please have d. rae call ALL games.
Keyshawn Johnson is hosting Rome is Burning.
I love that they're going to South Africa, but I don't know if I like the idea of having three anchors who will undoubtedly try to feign knowledge of the sport. ESPN would do well just to replicate their superb coverage of last summer's Euro 2008 in which they brought in Andy Gray for commentary and analysis. I am not sure just how much Reece Davis knows about the sport, but he certainly anchors the shows like a pro.
They're taking Chris Fowler off the French Open and Wembledon for the World Cup? It would be horrible if Berman was involved in this production at all. He might cause some kind of international incident with his schtick.
why no Brent??????
Call an event live from the event? Nah... I would rather listen to two jerk offs sitting in front of a television monitors.
Watch. They'll send the studio hosts and one broadcast team to South Africa. The other two announce crews will stay behind in Bristol.
Shame that Fowler won't be there to cover Roland Garros or Wimbledon...I've always liked his tennis commentary. He tends to stay neutral compared to the rest of the announcers who make their Williams ststers bias stick out like a sore thumb
Fowler leaving tennis commentary? Thank god. He's never had a clue about the sport. Of course, Suzy Kolber is just as bad.
no complaints about any of these hosts in my book
I actually think they will send four broadcast teams, a full set of analysis, and the anchors to the World Cup. By the way, I am pretty sure that Chris Berman will remain in the US to call baseball games and anchor Baseball Tonight.
Those commentators have a year to learn about soccer. They better make the effort or why should we bother watching?
They just announced the analysts this week, didn't they? Nigerian Efan Ekoku is one of them.
I wish they would have also at least sent some soccer commentators down to South Africa for the recent Confederations Cup. Instead, they called the games from Bristol, which was pretty obvious when you listen to the call.