Saccharine Sports Coverage

[Anton Gramscescu]

Why does television coverage of sports seem to be increasingly centred around the tear-jerker? I noticed this watching Setanta the other day and seeing their little video "we will be there". It seems to be meant to evoke some weird maudlin nostalgia. How is that related to football?

I've also noticed it in coverage of the Olympic Games - it's almost as if they seek out those athletes who have had some personal tragedy on their past and focus relentlessly on it (preferably recent past...the coverage of Joannie Rochette and the death of her mother this week just creates this tidal wave of sappiness). It's almost to the point where I feel that networks would like more sports to have judges awarding points not only for artistic merit but also for "degree of personal tragedy overcome". You know, so that the hard-luck athlete whose long-time coach passed away last week could get bumped from fifth to third and there'd be more feel-good all around.

Is it just my imagination that this phenomenon is becoming more pronounced or has it always been this way? I'm really starting to get annoyed by it.

[WOM]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

You ain't wrong. Did you watch any of the American Idol audition shows? That's the entire narrative now. "Pregnant at 16. Disabilities child. Auditioned in the '08 season and didn't get the gold ticket. Now her mom - her best friend and hero - has just died. Will '10 be her year?" YOU'RE GOING TO HOLLYWOOD, DOG!

So, in conclusion, yes.

[West End Zuma]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

NBCs coverage of the Olympics I think started the trend. I'm sure these sort of stories cropped up here and there before then, but NBC really went to town on it, complete with sepia tones and tinkly piano. They came in for some heavy criticism from regular viewers but apparently the marketing dept. found these sappy stories were popular with women, so they just kept doing more and more of them and I suppose the trend has infected other sports & entertainment coverage as well. I don't mind one or two of these profiles if there's something truly astonishing, otherwise I find them irritating and a waste of broadcast time.

[Reed John]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

Tyrrany of the storyline.

Link fixed.

[WOM]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

You have to delete the pre-populated http:// from the box before posting a link.

[WOM]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

I remember watching the '88 Olympics at university, and before every major event they'd cut to the personal story. Invariably it involved piano music, and the athlete walking alone, or with their dog, along a river or across a field. There'd be some tale of woe or hardship and how'd they'd overcome it.

The reason it stands out, even now, is that every guy in the room would go 'Ahhh..fuck..' and walk out of the room to find something else to do until the actual event began.

[ursus arctos]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

The CBC was doing it even that far back?

I thought that it was ABC that started the whole "up close and personal" thing back when they were the big boys of Olympic coverage in the US, and think that it likely took off in the early 80s.

[West End Zuma]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

Last night one of the figure skating commentators made a remark about how this Japanese skater had overcome a struggle with Bulimia. I mean, ffs.

[Reed John]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

I prefer it when the announcers strain to work in random factoids into their normal patter. "1-1 count now to Johnson, whose sister plays basketball for Pacific University, and here's a change-up that misses outside. You know, Bob, I was talking to some guys in the clubhouse and they were telling me that Johnson makes some outstanding barbecue on his ranch in the off-season-garcia misses low and away with the slider-ribs, chicken, you name it. He's got one of those big smoker things - fouls back that curveball...."

[ursus arctos]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

An interesting tidbit from that ESPN Ombudsperson piece:

In relative shadow was LSU's JaMarcus Russell, the actual first pick, who was not only a more tested quarterback, but also a better story, as we belatedly learned the next day when "Outside The Lines" did a profile showing Russell among the remarkable, tight-knit, extended family in Mobile, Ala. who helped his single mother raise him.

That hasn't worked out too well, has it?

What's more interesting is that Schreiber's focus is still very much on the "story line". She just prefers Russell's to Quinn's because it is less familiar and over-exposed.

[WOM]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

ursus arctos wrote:

The CBC was doing it even that far back?

They were. Although, it may have only been for Canadian athletes and only because they were in Calgary, but I don't know for sure.

[WOM]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

Reed of the Valley People wrote:

I prefer it when the announcers strain to work in random factoids into their normal patter. "1-1 count now to Johnson, whose sister plays basketball for Pacific University, and here's a change-up that misses outside. You know, Bob, I was talking to some guys in the clubhouse and they were telling me that Johnson makes some outstanding barbecue on his ranch in the off-season-garcia misses low and away with the slider-ribs, chicken, you name it. He's got one of those big smoker things - fouls back that curveball...."

Now that is a Saturday Night Live skit right there. And the trivia becomes more and more odd and personal as the inning wears on.

[Heliotrope]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

I think ABC started it at the 1972 or 1976 Olympics, but I really enjoyed them, although I was a kid then. They were basically about what the athlete's life off the field was like, and some I remember: 1. a Soviet weightlifter who was from a centuries-old German community (so it was educational!); 2. a German decathlete who was married to an American woman who struggled to deal with her mother-in-law, who expected things like sheets and/or undies to be ironed. It was humorous but not like a sitcom episode.

Once NBC started broadcasting Olympics, it was all soft-focus, dramatic voiceovers spouting strings of cliches, and swelling music. I think I remember reading that it was to woo women viewers. How insulting.

[Reed John]

Saccharine Sports Coverage

What's more interesting is that Schreiber's focus is still very much on the "story line". She just prefers Russell's to Quinn's because it is less familiar and over-exposed.

Yeah, I noticed that she got the basic gyst of it but still didn't fully grasp the point she was supposed to be making.