Who's enjoying tennis?

[.]

 

[Mikey]

My question is how are they going to try live finals if they can't even get ESPN to start them on time. If this happens in Houston and they just going to go straight to the finals if the show before goes over??

 

[Rat]

This espn deal is a joke and like before I will forever stand behind my statement.

 

[jpee]

its 7:40 pm now and to win the tennis match one of them has to win 3 sets...looks like the races wont start till well after 8 pm

 

[turbojoe]

I lost Indycar a few years ago to upper tier cable and Formula One this year. I already pay through the nose for cable. I refuse to pay even more just to get one stinking channel to see some races. If ESPN keeps up this poor excuse for NHRA programming I'm afraid drag racing will be heading to upper tier cable too. Good God, all that will be left then will be Nascrap. I just can't handle watching rednecks chasing each other in a circle for hours on end........

Joe

 

[.]

Wake up, it's on! Only 55 minutes late.

 

[dave]

Go ESPN 3 and you will never watch an evening show again. No tennis, pingpong etc, just racing without the BS. I love the internet shows.

 

[.]

Go ESPN 3 and you will never watch an evening show again. No tennis, pingpong etc, just racing without the BS. I love the internet shows.

I would if I could. My ISP doesn't have a deal with them.

 

[J]

espn needs to learn how to schedule,idiots. lol

 

[Sandy]

Wake up, it's on! Only 55 minutes late.

For the 2nd time in 4 races

 

[vegasnitro]

I lost Indycar a few years ago to upper tier cable and Formula One this year. I already pay through the nose for cable. I refuse to pay even more just to get one stinking channel to see some races. If ESPN keeps up this poor excuse for NHRA programming I'm afraid drag racing will be heading to upper tier cable too. Good God, all that will be left then will be Nascrap. I just can't handle watching rednecks chasing each other in a circle for hours on end........

Joe

IndyCar and F1 are on the same channel now. I watched every second of the F1 coverage on NBCSports this weekend, and it was just as good as the coverage on SPEED. And since both Open Wheel series are on the same channel, Diffey will be in St. Pete next weekend, and Bob Varsha will be re-united with Hobbs and Matchett on next week's F1 coverage for Malaysia.

As has been discussed to death on this board, it is not really up to ESPN to do anything with the NHRA coverage as NHRA pays for the privilege to be on ESPN. As far as ESPN is concerned, NHRA rates one notch above infomercial, ESPN makes their money no matter what so there is no incentive for them to improve the product.

Lastly, it cost me $7.95 more per month to get the "Digital Sports Tier" that included NBCSports HD (as well as NFL Network HD). While I agree that "a la carte TV" can't get here soon enough, the thought of not watching F1 FAR outweighed the 8 bucks a month more that the cable company is getting out of me, plus I get the added premium of Thursday night NFL games this fall. Not gonna cut off my nose to spite my face for 8 bucks. Your mileage may vary.

 

[rckymtn3]

I watched every second of the F1 coverage on NBCSports this weekend, and it was just as good as the coverage on SPEED...both Open Wheel series are on the same channel....

I am happy too. Indy Car and F1 coexisting without any screaming, including qualifying for both series. Nice that they simply "bought" the tried and true SPEED group....I love Hobbs and Matchett! I am wondering who is on-tap for Indy announcing...hopefully it's Tommy Kendall or Scott Goodyear...Gary Gerould was always a good choice as well, but with ESPN/ABC affiliation, I see no chance of that, but then, maybe that also locks out Marty Reid, which is COMPLETELY okay by me.

...I agree that "a la carte TV" can't get here soon enough....

Not in our lifetime unless things change drastically. The cable industry lobbies very hard in Washington as well as it's own industry to prevent that very thing from happening.


and since it's an announcer's post, Bob Orme used to laugh any time he could say "Jack Arute" and "Dick Trickle" in the same sentence.

 

[legendman]

How about Las Vegas finals in a couple weeks being on at 11pm

 

[Mary]

How about Las Vegas finals in a couple weeks being on at 11pm

11pm...bummer

 

[vegasnitro]

I am happy too. Indy Car and F1 coexisting without any screaming, including qualifying for both series. Nice that they simply "bought" the tried and true SPEED group....I love Hobbs and Matchett! I am wondering who is on-tap for Indy announcing...hopefully it's Tommy Kendall or Scott Goodyear...Gary Gerould was always a good choice as well, but with ESPN/ABC affiliation, I see no chance of that, but then, maybe that also locks out Marty Reid, which is COMPLETELY okay by me.




Not in our lifetime unless things change drastically. The cable industry lobbies very hard in Washington as well as it's own industry to prevent that very thing from happening.


and since it's an announcer's post, Bob Orme used to laugh any time he could say "Jack Arute" and "Dick Trickle" in the same sentence.

I believe it is Leigh Diffey and Jan Beekhuis in the booth with Calvin Fish on pit lane for the IndyCar stuff on NBCSports. If other message boards are to be believed, Bob Varsha is doing the F1 race next weekend pro bono and Fox are just going to look the other way while he is doing the call on NBCSports. There is probably an understanding that when Varsha's contract is up at the end of '13, he will slide back into the lead announcers chair for F1 and order will be restored to the Universe.

It's not just cable, it is the satellite and network parent companies too. Viacom (CBS, MTV, E!, A+E, VH1, etc) and GE (NBC, MSNBC, Nickelodeon, CNBC) and Turner (CNN, TNT, TBS) and Discovery (History, Discovery, TLC) and Fox (Fox, FX, SPEED, FoxNews) and Disney (ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, Disney Channel) all negotiate their channels in blocks, rather than individually, so there is no way to determine true a la carte pricing. These parent companies get paid for programming no matter what under the current model and they definitely want to keep it that way. They say this allows them to amortize their costs to keep prices down, I say let me pay for what I watch and let the market dictate pricing.

Sorry for another awesome thread jack!

 

[mick]

wonder if espn will let nhra go past 5pm ET from Houston on 4/28?
can you imagine the forum websites for other sports if they do?
threads will be titled 'who's enjoying drag racing?'

on sunday 4/28......
sprint cup sat. night @ richmond (4/27)
pga zurich classic from louisiana
regular NBA, NHL & MLB schedules

 

[mike]

As has been discussed to death on this board, it is not really up to ESPN to do anything with the NHRA coverage as NHRA pays for the privilege to be on ESPN. As far as ESPN is concerned, NHRA rates one notch above infomercial, ESPN makes their money no matter what so there is no incentive for them to improve the product.

while I agree with everything you said, the one thing that ESPN does differently than the other sports networks is they consistantly "under-schedule" the block of time needed for a live event. For example I think everybody knows a college basketball game is going to take longer than 2 hours, yet that is often all ESPN schedules it for. This has been going on for YEARS at ESPN, and it effects things other than drag racing. If ESPN used more realistic blocks of time for live events, even the NHRA "infomecials" wouldn't get pushed around so much.

 

[DrRocket]

I never trust "season pass" when it comes to the show. I always schedule each reace individually for just this reason, and schedule an extra hour. But as I was fast forwarding the tennis, I have to say I was getting a bit nervous when the time hit 50 minutes over.

 

[clwill]

I never trust "season pass" when it comes to the show. I always schedule each reace individually for just this reason, and schedule an extra hour. But as I was fast forwarding the tennis, I have to say I was getting a bit nervous when the time hit 50 minutes over.

You can tell virtually every brand of DVR to add extra time to even "season pass" types of recordings. I record everything that has "NHRA" in the title or description, and have it add an extra hour. Can't remember the last time this didn't record something I wanted, in its entirety.

 

[clwill]

while I agree with everything you said, the one thing that ESPN does differently than the other sports networks is they consistantly "under-schedule" the block of time needed for a live event. For example I think everybody knows a college basketball game is going to take longer than 2 hours, yet that is often all ESPN schedules it for. This has been going on for YEARS at ESPN, and it effects things other than drag racing. If ESPN used more realistic blocks of time for live events, even the NHRA "infomecials" wouldn't get pushed around so much.

The problem for ESPN is the converse situation. Let's say they allocate 3 hours for a basketball game and it runs 2:15. They suddenly have to make up 45mins of material. Anyone who watched the Super Bowl knows that watching sportscasters kill time is infinitely painful.

So they under-schedule as you call it, and push things back. From their perspective, I don't blame them.

And it's not like they are delaying coverage of a live event. It's already tape delayed, what's another few minutes? You'll still see the whole thing. The tape will still be there, and so will the audience -- the NHRA audience is loyal and will wait for it.

As much as I don't like it, it seems like a pretty reasonable approach for ESPN...