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    How live sport should be televised

    Obviously, I’m referring to major broadcasters with multiple cameras and resources. And I’m focusing here on the live feed, not edited highlights packages. I was triggered to start this thread via some comments on the cycling thread grumbling about the coverage of some races, and this started me asking myself about best practices etc.

    In cycling, for example, should the leaders in a stage always be prioritised, or should the race leaders be given more attention? How to deal with uphill finishes? How often to use helicopter shots? Similar questions with motor racing.

    In many sports, camera angles are important. I kind of sometimes miss the days when cricket had a single camera so that you saw the batsmen both from behind and facing. In boxing, the producer must always be praying that the KO punch isn’t obscured by the referee. And in football, how much of the actual pitch do you prefer to see on the screen? Do you like the recent trend of showing penalties from behind the taker? Or corners from the corner flag?

    Any other observations most welcome; I’ve barely scratched the surface​.

    #2
    "Corners from the corner flag", yes.

    https://youtube.com/shorts/b1zjjf5EN1g?feature=share4

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      #3
      None of the cycling ones you mention bother me. My big issue with cycling coverage is that women's races often don't come on till significant action has occurred. My second issue is the commentators obsessively referencing the countries riders are from and focusing on anglophone ones. Cavendish has not been any kind of factor in this Giro but they still go on and on about him. This can actually be broadened out to all sports, it has been annoying since I was a kid. I have fond memories of the 1994 World Cup, when England didn't qualify so we were spared the broadcasters obsessing about them.

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        #4
        One of the problems with cycling is that important action can be happening simultaneously at two or more different places on the road, and they obviously have to make a decision as to which is more important. A couple of days ago on the Giro the stage win was being fought over at one point on the mountain while the favourites for the overall race were battling further down the hill. In my opinion they don't always get it right as to which one to prioritise, but I understand that they have to make a call

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          #5
          This maybe isn't quite in line with the premise of the thread, but elite-level rugby union needs something along the lines of goal-line technology for when a try is scored but the ball isn't visible under a pile of body parts (as happened twice in yesterday's Premiership final).
          Send a signal to the referee, who can therefore give a decision without the need for umpteen replays, and have a hawk-eye (or similar technology) view available on the big screen in the ground and to the broadcaster. Overall it'd be quicker, less controversial and leave less time for the likes of Austin Healey to debate it...

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            #6
            It does annoy me on the F1 coverage that they will spend whole laps with an overexcited commentator screaming about a "battle for 8th place!" when obviously no-one could really give a fuck, and it's only because nothing's happened at the front of the race for half an hour that you're trying to make it sound remotely exciting.

            On cycling, especially the Grand Tours, I am always mesmerised by the flyover shots of the villages and towns they're cycling through. The Giro went through Treviso the other day, and it made me start looking at booking.com for holiday ideas.

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              #7
              That's exactly what they should be doing with F1 races, surely? I care about the battle for eighth place, especially as these days it might well be Hamilton down there.

              Agreed on cycling though, those kind of shots are just absolutely swoon-some.

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                #8
                Not. Mostly.

                I mean, I don't really get most "sports" anyway, tbh. But the ones I do, they should mostly not be televised live. The others, I don't so much mind about

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                  #9
                  I don't agree but I love this take.

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                    #10
                    Originally posted by Rogin the Armchair fan View Post
                    It does annoy me on the F1 coverage that they will spend whole laps with an overexcited commentator screaming about a "battle for 8th place!" when obviously no-one could really give a fuck, and it's only because nothing's happened at the front of the race for half an hour that you're trying to make it sound remotely exciting.
                    Fans have always enjoyed battles for position throughout the field. I haven't watched F1 for years but if 8th/9th is where the action is then that's where I'd want the cameras.

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                      #11
                      Cricket always had a difficult problem. It's a game of small physical bat and ball battles and tiny margins which takes place on an enormous field. It's hard to show the bowlers and batters and the field settings around them. I like how they've tried to solve this, inspired in large part by T20, with graphics of the field placings either on the screen during the action, or graphics/animations which are shown in interludes between balls. Different camera angles have been pretty good, too.

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                        #12
                        For cricket, I used to like it when they would show the whole field at the start of a (fast) bowlers run-up, then slowly zoom in until it was essentially just the bowler and batter in the frame at the point of delivery. That gave a good sense of the fielding before focusing on the strike.

                        One thing I've always disliked is fast cuts between different angles. The French Open (tennis) is what I associated this with first, frequently changing camera every one to two shots. I've since noticed it creep more frequently into other sports, including football.

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                          #13
                          Originally posted by delicatemoth View Post

                          Fans have always enjoyed battles for position throughout the field. I haven't watched F1 for years but if 8th/9th is where the action is then that's where I'd want the cameras.
                          Indeed, beats the two mainstays of F1 if you watched it 20-25 years ago: following the leader when there were battles lower down the field, and obsessive focus on the back marker whose home Grand Prix it happened to be.

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                            #14
                            surely it's only a matter of time before they put a camera in the football

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                              #15
                              I have a few Old Man Grumbles (as mentioned above, too many pop video fast cuts) but on t'other hand, some coverage has improved immeasurably. Long distance events out on the course (triathlon, marathon, cycling) will have graphics telling us the pack is 15 seconds behind, the arrivals at the last checkpoint, etc. With names, flags, other useful info.

                              Time was when you watched a marathon for 2+ hours and all you saw was a couple of front runners, who then got swallowed up by the pack and finished out of the medals. Unless they were in camera shot you had no idea that the "catchers" were still in the race.

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                                #16
                                Less reverence, less analysis, less framing of everything as "dramatic" or "historic", less shouting, less standardised graphics whooshing around (why has every sporting competition been gifted an "identity" by PR people? Different sports just are different).

                                I'll tell you another thing that annoys me; those times when Team GB are up for olympic medal success and Jeremy Vine takes lunchtime calls about "minority sports". I must add, it's not the sports / sports performers I have an issue with, it's Jeremy Vine et al.
                                Last edited by Kowalski; 29-05-2023, 08:15.

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                                  #17
                                  Originally posted by Kowalski View Post
                                  Less reverence, less analysis, less framing of everything as "dramatic" or "historic", less shouting, less standardised graphics whooshing around (why has everything sporting competition got an "identity"?).
                                  THIS

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                                    #18
                                    Originally posted by diggedy derek View Post
                                    I don't agree but I love this take.
                                    Thanks.

                                    Live football on telly as a rare treat can be a very fine thing. There are no genies going back into any bottles, sadly. But it would be wonderful if there were. One of the worst things to happen to the game over recent years.

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                                      #19
                                      Originally posted by TonTon View Post

                                      Live football on telly as a rare treat can be a very fine thing.
                                      Due to having BT Sport I am now presented with my teenage dream scenario; access to as much televised football as I want from countries that I like. If only reality was like my teenage dreams...

                                      If anything there's too much football and I'm almost rendered immobile by indecision. Take a couple of weeks ago, I could have watched any of the Europa League / Conference League semi finals but because they all looked interesting in their own way I couldn't decide which one I should watch and flicked between them.

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                                        #20
                                        For a fair whack of my childhood we didn't have telly. But then we did. I don't ever remember wanting live football on all the time though. I guess you'd probably say that was to some extent an Overton window issue.

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                                          #21
                                          Originally posted by TonTon View Post
                                          Live football on telly as a rare treat can be a very fine thing. There are no genies going back into any bottles, sadly. But it would be wonderful if there were. One of the worst things to happen to the game over recent years.
                                          For those unable for whatever reason to attend live games, why is it bad?

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                                            #22
                                            Originally posted by Sporting View Post

                                            For those unable for whatever reason to attend live games, why is it bad?
                                            But nearly everyone is able to attend live games (with the occasional exception, like people who work on oil rigs)

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                                              #23
                                              It's like arguing for the private car on the grounds of there being disabled people who can't use the current bus setup easily.

                                              People can go to games.

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                                                #24
                                                But isn't it the case that in Britain at least, lower league football matches are generally decently attended, despite available televised games?

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                                                  #25
                                                  Even the original Sky deal seems like a different era now, with generally only one match televised per round, so in an ideal world, that's what would be reverted to, but on FTA channels.

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