Yes, there was the inevitable confusion, as CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus predicted.
Viewers were bewildered by pro-(UConn, Wisconsin, Kentucky, Florida) calls on Saturday, depending on where their remotes took them. Adding to the problem was that this was Turner Sports’ first coverage of the Final Four semis.
You could hear people’s brains grinding: What Turner channel? TNT? TBS? Doubt that anyone went to truTV.
If they turned to TNT, a Teamcast outlet, they probably wondered what happened to Jim Nantz and objectivity.
Fortunately, Charles Barkley was on hand to clear things up as only he can.
“You people are all idiots,” Barkley said.
Thanks, Charles.
My view: More Teamcasts, please.
Perhaps due to being a serial channel flipper, but I enjoyed having more options Saturday than the conventional national call. It was refreshing to hear different perspectives and see different presentations.
When Florida went down in the second half, I turned over to the Gator Teamcast to see how their announcers were handling the situation. I liked being able to listen to old pal Wayne Larrivee, one of the true pros in the business, being all-in with Wisconsin.
Richard Sandomir of the New York Times wrote on Rex Chapman being a Teamcast analyst for Kentucky:
“I don’t want to sound like a complete homer,” Chapman said late in the game as he criticized a foul call. Very quickly, he reversed himself. “I guess I do want to sound like a complete homer,” he said, glee in his voice.
I would listen to Chapman tonight if I could. Alas, CBS isn’t using the Teamcast concept for the title game. However, it probably will next year.
The bottom line: Innovation is good. Thinking out of the box is good.
It’s 2014, and TV executives know they can’t give viewers the same old thing. They have the platforms and resources to give viewers something different.
Whether it is Teamcast or ESPN’s Megacast for the BCS title game, or something else, the days of one game-one network, at least for the big games, are likely done.
If it results in some confusion early on, and if Barkley calls you an idiot, well, you’re in good company there.
Thought this was a great idea and they should keep doing it. They should also add it to the national games both college and pro like NBC used to do in the 60’s and 70’s on their World Series coverage. For those who don’t remember NBC would pair one of the local TV announcers with Curt Gowdy on the call. Which announcer worked with Curt depended on who was the home team.
For example in 1972 when Cincinnati hosted a young Al Michaels worked with Curt. When the series was in Oakland Monty Moore worked with him.
It gave a national telecast a little bit of home flavor and face it, no national announcer who works a handful of games involving one team can possibly know as much or provide as much insight as the local announcer.
I like this idea, but I can see why there’s so much confusion. To the casual viewer, there isn’t one main cable station the game would be on.
For instance, if ESPN did this the main game would be on espn, and the home calls would be on espn2 and another sub-espn station (espn u, espn news, the ocho).
The best choice would be to have the main call on cbs, and the team calls on tnt & tbs. But I imagine the partnership between cbs & turner wouldn’t allow this.