THE MLB AND TBS ARE JUST A BAD MATCH

[TMC]

http://www.awfulannouncing.com/2013/...bad-match.html

Written by Steve Lepore on 04 October 2013.

My parents watch TBS approximately three to five hours a day. They enjoy the network's programming, which includes reruns of Seinfeld, The Big Bang Theory, King of Queens and Friends. This starts the annual two to three weeks per year when they find something else to watch.

That seems as good a way as any to point out why the MLB's deal with TBS to televise most of its postseason is a strange one. The network is simply not associated with sports. Three weeks of the MLB Playoffs hasn't done it, the NCAA Tournament (and eventually college basketball's championship game) won't do it. It isn't even the better known sports network within its parent company, as TNT's NBA coverage has long trumped it, in both quality and legitimacy. The NBA is a signature property at TNT all season long, whereas with baseball, it's almost as if they just remembered they have it by the time October shows up.

Let's start this off by saying something nice: TBS appears to have gotten the studio show correct this season. Did active player Mark DeRosa put one person too many on their panel? Probably, but Keith Olbermann as a baseball studio host is something that should've happened years ago. He puts an already interesting cast of analysts (Dirk Hayhurst, Tom Verducci, and the lovable Pedro Martinez) in a position to succeed and make interesting points without either droning on or yelling. The studio show has been a bit of a mashup of people who haven't quite panned out, so to see them immediately get it right upon making the change is quite nice.

They also have a couple of decent voices in the parks. Ron Darling is smart and always very honest in his analysis, though as a Met fan, I do feel as if he's had just a little bit of his power taken away without Gary Cohen and Keith Hernandez on SNY. Brian Anderson is a fine play-by-play man on TBS' 'B'-team. Cal Ripken has gotten better as he's gone along as an analyst. I expect good things out of the Don Orsillo/Buck Martinez/Dennis Eckersley team that will debut on the Detroit/Oakland series on Friday night.

However, things just seem to snowball in the wrong direction for TBS. Problems all night with sound on the Tampa Bay/Cleveland game, where I actually had to switch off the high-definition broadcast so I could hear the ball hitting the catcher's glove at the correct time I saw it on the screen. Missing outs during the Pittsburgh/St. Louis game. Barely showing any of the pregame atmosphere in Pittsburgh on Tuesday. Dick Stockton sounding like baseball is a bit too fast for him. TBS flat out had a bad couple of days from a technical perspective on Wednesday and Thursday including the mystery of the missing ad behind home plate.

This is, frankly, inexcusable given the amount of October baseball they have the rights to. They get the weekly Sunday afternoon game (though no one watches) to get everything fine tuned for this, and every year something seems to go haywire. From The Steve Harvey Show interrupting Game 7 of the 2008 ALCS, to the graphics department forgetting how to spell Cal Ripken's name, to the problems of this year's postseason, the network simply hasn't found a way to get it all right in October.

MLB's partnership with TBS is, more or less, necessitated by ESPN having Monday Night Football. Otherwise, you know The Worldwide Leader would have all (or most) of the postseason. But the inability to program on Monday nights (and, let's face it, Saturdays with college football, too) without moving to ESPN2, and Fox's disinterest in having the LDS round wreak havoc on its primetime schedule is what has forced this arrangement. TBS simply isn't a sports destination, and it doesn't seem like the right destination, given the tone of the network, for baseball.

The next TV contract will show off the disparity even more. Starting in 2014, ESPN will take one of the Wild Cards, and Fox Sports 1 will take half the Division Series. Those networks do a considerably better job on baseball than TBS, and it will show off when they go head-to-head. Even if you don't like some of their personalities, ESPN and Fox both have reputations for putting the game on the air and televising it the right way.

Fox Sports 1, to me, is a huge element of this deal. If the MLB Playoffs not only helps them grow as a network, but continues to drive viewers there (it'll pretty much be the first big-time major sports event for them) MLB may get to a place some years down the line where they give FS1 the entire playoff contract. Or what about an arrangement similar to the NBA? Where FS1 takes the weekends and Mondays, but ESPN gets games the rest of the week?

The truth is that MLB on TBS isn't working. The network is getting good ratings, but what's the point? Baseball fans aren't going to come back for Big Bang Theory reruns, and vice versa. Conan O'Brien's show hasn't exactly been a ratings dynamo despite getting massive promotion during October baseball. It'd almost make more sense to put the postseason on TNT, to make that network a more natural destination for prime sporting events, and give them a month of free reminders that the NBA on TNT is back. Just give my parents their Seinfeld reruns back.

[mets82]

I dont think I was too keen on MLB on TBS but its not that bad. The times of the games are ok and I dont have any problems with the announcers.

[TMC]

http://networkedblogs.com/QbD0A

In 2006 when TBS signed its contract to take over most of the MLB Postseason, it was coming in at a time when ESPN and Fox were reducing their commitments. ESPN was starting its big $1 billion/year contract with Monday Night Football. Fox which was wrapping up its contract airing 3-6 League Division Series games, both LCS and the World Series, wanted to cut back on the interruptions to its primetime schedule.

In came TBS which took all tiebreaking games, all of the League Division Series and one League Championship Series. As this was happening, TBS would end its long-time relationship with the Atlanta MLB team in 2007 and begin a 26 regular season game Sunday afternoon schedule the following year. And while TBS would continue its baseball tradition, it would become a national baseball channel instead focusing on one team.

TBS began with exclusive coverage of the League Division Series and one League Championship Series. In 2012, Turner picked up the new Wild Card play-in games while giving two LDS games to MLB Network.

With Turner Sports’ current contract ending as the National League Championship Series winds down, it will continue carrying the MLB, but with a reduced regular season schedule (13 games), one Wild Card Game alternating leagues with ESPN, two League Division Series again alternating leagues this time with Fox Sports 1 and one League Championship Series alternating with Fox as its has done since 2007.

TBS tried some things like the Hot Corner, an online companion to live action. It got over a million views during the time it was streamed in 2007, but it never ran again. It transitioned to Postseason.TV which allowed fans to see alternate angles and hear the TBS calls, but not the actual feeds.

There were some good things about TBS’ coverage and some bad things. And when they were bad, they were REALLY bad.

Let’s take a look at some of the aspects of TBS’ MLB Posteason coverage.

STUDIO COVERAGE
TBS saved its best studio team for the last year of this contract. Keith Olbermann, Tom Verducci and Pedro Martinez formed the nucleus of a very strong tandem and whether they were joined by Adam Jones, Gary Sheffield or Dirk Hayhurst, TBS was very good in 2013. Olbermann is in his element talking baseball and putting Verducci next to him was a very good move. Pedro was nervous at the beginning, but has become more comfortable and his “Who’s Your Daddy” segment turned out to be a big success.

Any studio show Turner Sports produces is directly compared to the great Inside the NBA and while the MLB studio has paled, this year with Olbermann as host has been a huge success. Yes, the team of Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal is leap years ahead of other studio shows, but Turner has to be given credit for blowing up its studio from past years and retooling in 2013. It’s unfortunate that Olbermann may just be a one-year rental for TBS as Keith does have his nightly ESPN2 duties, but if Turner and ESPN can come to an agreement for next year as there is an option for him to return in 2014, it would be beneficial to the viewers.

Ernie Johnson hosted the first three years from 2007-09 and Matt Winer took over in 2010 through 2012. Both men did a good job in hosting the studio, but there were times when the cast of analysts failed them. A lot of it had to do with Turner not having a studio presence during the regular season except for the All-Star Game Selection Show and the last week of the season.

Turner has used a myriad of analysts here from Cal Ripken, Jr., Ron Darling, David Wells, Frank Thomas to Dennis Eckersley. They went from decent with Eck to sluggish with Cal.

Overall, a mixed bag for the studio. We give the Turner studio from 2007-2012 a C. The studio for this season gets an A minus.

PLAY-BY-PLAY
With Turner having 12-20 League Division Series in the first five years of the contract to two Wild Cards and 10-18 LDS games in the last two years, TBS needed to utilize four play-by-play men to cover all of the series. When it aired Atlanta in the first year of the contract, it was strange we did not see TV voice Skip Caray or Pete Van Wieren, but TBS chose to go in a different direction. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t. The problem was Turner did not have a bona fide number one announcer for the MLB Postseason when it began and it still doesn’t now. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves.

Let’s go over the announcers in four categories, Good, Decent and Painful.

GOOD
Brian Anderson – Joining the Milwaukee Brewers in 2007 and tapped by TBS to join its coverage a year later, he became the “B” announcer for the network. In 2011, he replaced Ernie Johnson on the “A” team as Johnson cared for his son that season. Anderson is very good and doesn’t try to go overboard in calling the games. Eventually, he would call the bulk of the regular season games on TBS and become one of the trusted voices for Turner on the NCAA Tournament as well. A very good all-around announcer and before he joined the Brewers broadcast team, Anderson was calling the PGA Tour for Golf Channel. Expect Anderson to return next season for Turner’s coverage.

Don Orsillo – Don has only called the postseason for Turner and was offered a job by the network last season to join them full-time. However, he turned it down to remain the TV voice of the Boston Red Sox on NESN a job he has held since 2001. Orsillo is the answer to a trivia question. With Joe Simpson, he called the one game tiebreaker game in 2007 for the National League Wild Card kicking off TBS’ postseason coverage under this contract. For most of his Turner tenure, he worked with Buck Martinez, but this year, he was teamed with his NESN partner, Dennis Eckersley along with Martinez in calling the Detroit-Oakland series. Don is quite good, but it appears that his time in calling the MLB Postseason is over after this season.

Victor Rojas – Victor was only used in the 2011 season calling the Arizona-Milwaukee NLDS series. The TV voice of the Angels of Anaheim for Fox Sports West could have easily replaced Dick Stockton and Turner’s coverage would have been elevated for 2012 and 2013, but alas, it was not to be.

DECENT
Ernie Johnson – He’s a better studio host than he is a play-by-play man. He has improved since being named as the lead play-by-play man for TBS. Johnson does call a handful of regular season games before doing the postseason and in 2011, called some Atlanta games on Peachtree TV before Turner handed all of the rights to Fox. Still, the inexperience in calling baseball shows at times and it hurts that TBS still doesn’t have a legit Number One announcer. Expect EJ to return in 2014. He’s Turner’s guy.

Ted Robinson – Primarily known for tennis, Olympics and being the Voice of the San Francisco 49ers, Robinson does have a baseball background having called the Minnesota Twins, New York Mets and Oakland A’s. He was tapped by TBS to call the Red Sox-Angels ALDS series in 2007 and did not return after that. The series ended in a sweep and it was too bad that Ted did not do any work for TBS after 2007, but his 49ers duties have precluded that.

PAINFUL
Chip Caray – I can make comparisons to his grandfather, Harry, a Hall of Famer, or his father Skip, a revered announcer in Atlanta, but I won’t. Instead, I’ll go over Caray’s body of work from 2007 to 2009. His work on TBS included “Line drive! Base hit! Caught out there!” or “FISTED.” It was horrible. After tremendous criticism from fans, bloggers and sports media writers alike, TBS removed Caray from its Postseason coverage and replaced him with Ernie Johnson.

Caray was awful. He showed a lack of understanding of the American League when he called the Yankees-Cleveland series in 2007 and again during the Twins-Yankees series in 2009. Why Turner chose him to be its “A” announcer for the MLB Postseason is still unknown to this day.

Dick Stockton – Stockton has been a Turner Sports mainstay dating back to 1995 when he joined TNT to call the NBA. Since 2007, he along with Don Orsillo are the only play-by-play announcers to work the entire span of this current contract. And since 2010, he has been calling regular season MLB games on TBS.

Dick used to be one of the best all-around announcers calling MLB, NBA, NCAA Tournament, NFL and the Olympics either for CBS, Fox, NBC and of course, Turner. Over the last ten years, the slippage has been very noticeable. Stockton used to call Red Sox games for WSBK-TV in the 1970′s and MLB for CBS in the early 1990′s then on Fox since 1996. He’s been missing a lot of the action and malapropisms have become more commonplace. It’s really sad because Stockton was once one of the best. It’s probable that he won’t return on Turner’s coverage, but we may see him on Fox Sports 1 next season.

ANALYSTS
Turner has used Ron Darling and John Smoltz as their main analysts over the years, but this year, chose to hang its hat on Darling as Smoltz was assigned to the “B” announcing team. Since 2007, Turner has used a bevy of analysts including Bob Brenly, Buck Martinez, Harold Reynolds, Joe Simpson and Steve Stone. This season, Dennis Eckersley and Cal Ripken left the studio and were used as game analysts. Let’s take a look.

GOOD
Ron Darling – Coming over from SNY as a co-analyst on the New York Mets, Darling has become the Number 1 analyst for TBS. Signed to a long-term deal this year, he’ll be the main guy for TBS’ coverage for several seasons. While he has been less outspoken which has made him beloved in New York, Darling still shows signs of brilliance. I would prefer John Smoltz as the main TBS analyst, but that’s me. Darling has served as a studio analyst and then a game analyst on postseason coverage and has been rewarded with the main analyst role.

Dennis Eckersley — This was his first year as a game analyst on the MLB Postseason. Eck was teamed with his NESN partner, Don Orsillo on Detroit-Oakland. Because they had a good chemistry working on Red Sox games over the past few seasons, it was only natural for TBS to team Don and Eckersley this season. Joined by Orsillo’s TBS partner Buck Martinez, Eck was very natural in the booth and showed a lot of humor. Eckersley also formed his own vocabulary with “high cheese,” “punchout,” “lettuce,” etc. If Eck returns to TBS next season and there’s no evidence to the contrary, it would be good idea to put him on the “A” team with Ernie Johnson and Ron Darling.

Harold Reynolds – H.R. was utilized on TBS in 2008 on the Chicago White Sox-Tampa Bay series and worked with Don Orsillo. Reynolds used this and SNY as a springboard to return to television after his notorious dismissal from ESPN. It eventually helped him get his studio analyst position at MLB Network. Reynolds did a good job on this series and he has proven that he can fill this role as well as the studio position. There are times when H.R. will go out of his way not to criticize players and gives them the benefit of the doubt, but he is a strong analyst and there’s a reason why he has won Sports Emmys on the local and national level. Reynolds is a candidate to replace Tim McCarver as the main analyst for Fox and would not be a bad choice.

John Smoltz – Joined TBS in 2008 and became an integral part of its regular season and postseason coverage through this year. He is a very strong analyst and can spot trends at a moment’s notice. I’m not sure why TBS didn’t hire Smoltz as its main guy. Another candidate to replace McCarver on Fox, he’s probably the leader in the clubhouse to join the network. He has proven he can work with multiple announcers whether it be Brian Anderson, Chip Caray, Ernie Johnson or Dick Stockton on TBS or Bob Costas and Matt Vasgersian on MLB Network. Smoltz has shown he is willing to do his homework.

DECENT
Bob Brenly – At one time, he formed a three man team with Joe Buck and Tim McCarver on Fox. He eventually joined WGN on Cubs games and parlayed his work into an annual role with TBS except for 2008. Teamed with Dick Stockton in 2007 and again in 2009 through this year, he’s had to overcome some of Stockton’s maddening calls. I liked Brenly when he worked with Len Kasper on WGN and was a thoughtful analyst on the Cubs broadcasts. I haven’t seen much of his work on the Arizona Diamondbacks with former ESPN’er Steve Berthiaume. Except for 2008, Brenly has been a constant on TBS, but I don’t expect him to return next season.

Buck Martinez – Buck has done a lot of work for TBS since 2007. He’s filled various roles for TBS’ postseason including as a main analyst with Chip Caray on the LDS, but since 2009, been with Don Orsillo. His work sharpened this year when Dennis Eckersley joined the team this season.

Cal Ripken – Freed from the studio and allowed to talk in longer spans, Ripken showed signs that he could be a good analyst. Also working with Ron Darling helped him. When he was in the studio, Ripken was often stiff and nervous. In the booth, he was more relaxed and he showed some of the knowledge that he picked up as playing shortstop for the Orioles. Would be good on the “B” team with Brian Anderson next season.

Steve Stone – Only used in 2007 for the Red Sox-Angels series with Ted Robinson. Once one of baseball’s top local analysts when he was with Haray Caray on Cubs games on WGN, he’s been dragged down by Hawk Harrelson now on White Sox broadcasts. Would have shown some very good work had TBS used him regularly.

UGLY
Tony Gwynn – Worked the National League Division Series between the Chicago Cubs and Los Angeles Dodgers with Dick Stockton and Ron Darling. You talk about a team that had no chemistry, this was it. Stockton was in the midst of his slippage. Gwynn offered nothing. Darling was the sane one.

Gwynn was also used in the first year of TBS’ contract on the main team with Chip Caray. Holy frijoles.

Joe Simpson – The only holdover from the Atlanta days, I am baffled why TBS did not use Don Sutton instead. Simpson was part of the “B” team this season with Brian Anderson and John Smoltz. Luckily, Anderson and Smoltz were very good and they could hide any silly analysis from Simpson. I’m confused over why TBS continues to use him. I have a feeling he’ll return next season, but I wish they wouldn’t.

REPORTERS
TBS has utilized reporters such as David Aldridge, Craig Sager, Jamie Maggio, Trenni Kusnierek, Tom Verducci, Marc Fein, Marty Snyder. Sager is known for his loud wardrobe. Aldridge got the Gatorade bath this season. Overall, I’ll give the reporting a B minus. Some are better than others.

PRODUCTION
When TBS didn’t have outages and the Steve Harvey Show shown in baseball’s place, TBS did a decent job in airing the games. Unlike Fox, there weren’t excessive crowd cutaways. The coverage was understated and not over the top.

There were excessive promos for Frank TV, The George Lopez Show, Conan, Ground Floor, the Pete Holmes Show, Cougar Town and just about any show TBS was trying to pimp. They got sickening, but when you have a highly viewed event, you’re going to try and take advantage. Still, it was very hard to sample these shows with the promos. Frank TV and George Lopez aren’t around anymore.

The production gets a B minus. Promotion gets a D.

That’s a look at TBS’ coverage.

[TMC]

http://awfulannouncing.com/2016/does...d-viewers.html

Posted by Ken Fang on Oct 25, 2016 11:00

Dating back to when Ted Turner owned SuperStation WTBS, the network has aired baseball. At first, it was the Atlanta Braves as Turner owned both the team and the station and Ted was using the games for much needed programming for the summer. But after Turner sold his broadcasting empire which included CNN, TNT, Turner Classic Movies to Time Warner, the focus on the Braves began to shift. First, Time Warner sold the Braves, then TBS reduced its dependence on the team for programming eventually phasing out the team altogether in 2008.

But to retain a presence in baseball, Turner Sports signed a contract with MLB to air 26 Sunday afternoon games plus the entire League Division Series and one League Championship Series.

That deal lasted until 2014 when TBS signed a new deal, in essence paying more for less, losing 13 games to Fox/FS1, keeping a 13 game regular season package that would air after the All-Star Break and for the postseason, one Wild Card Game, two LDS and one LCS, all from one particular league. This season, TBS aired the American League half of the playoffs.

This particular package is an enigma. First, it airs on Sunday afternoons and doesn’t have a consistent stating time unlike ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball which always airs at 8 p.m. ET. The MLB on TBS games could start at 1 p.m., 1:30 or even as late as 2 p.m. The package rarely airs games at 4 p.m., although it could if it wished.

And unlike the other sport to which which Turner own the rights, the NBA, production values and announcers pale in comparison to basketball. We’ve seen TBS try to hit the ground running when it broadcasts the MLB Postseason, but it has to play catch up. There was the silly scorebug which seemed to take up the entire upper left corner of your TV screen and it took a while before fans saw a pitch count graphic.

TBS also has had issues in the broadcast booth. It tried to showcase Chip Caray as its lead announcer, an experiment which just didn’t work whether he was constantly saying “FISTED” or describing a line drive as a base hit. Currently, Inside the NBA host Ernie Johnson is the lead announcer for the MLB on TBS, and while EJ is an excellent host, his play-by-play is not as strong as his studio work.

But as we complain, this is consistent for MLB. Over the years, it has signed silly TV deals, taking the money while not serving the fans.

In the 1980’s, ABC signed a deal that called for 25 regular season games, but the network elected to air just 6-8 games, mostly on Monday nights, some on Sunday afternoons late in the season. ABC would air the All-Star Game and LCS in even-numbered years while broadcasting the World Series during odd-numbered seasons, alternating with NBC.

That was replaced with a real money grab, a four-year, $1.8 billion contract with CBS that originally would have the network broadcast 12 regular season games per season. After fan outcry, MLB and CBS agreed to increase the amount to 16 games, but that was off compared to the 40 combined games on ABC and NBC. To offset the reduced schedule on CBS, MLB signed a contract with ESPN to air 175 games.

After CBS swore off baseball, MLB signed a strange contract with ABC and NBC to form the Baseball Network which would have each network airing just six games each, but regaionalizing every MLB game on a given night. This lasted from 1994 through 1995 with both networks opting out.

For the next five seasons, MLB then signed contracts with Fox and NBC. The Peacock had the strangest contract, just airing 3 LDS games, one LCS and alternating the World Series with Fox between 1996 and 2000. NBC would not air any regular season games. This would be like the NFL signing a contract with Fox, but only giving it 3 playoff games and a Super Bowl once every three years.

And as we come back to the present day, MLB’s TV contracts are all over the place. There are games on ESPN, Fox, FS1, MLB Network and TBS. With playoff games on all of these networks, it’s no wonder that fans are confused over where to find the playoffs.

As for TBS’ regular season package, perhaps the 13 games would be better off dispersed among ESPN and FS1. It’s one thing to have a package that is aired in primetime with exclusivity such as Sunday Night Baseball, but it’s another to have one on Sunday afternoon when many fans are out and may not be able to watch it due to blackout rules. Some of TBS’ games can air in local markets, but it all depends on the matchup.

Maybe in the next contract, TBS can increase its load of regular season games and maybe even take over Wednesday Night Baseball from ESPN, but for now, its current schedule is sorely lacking and handicapped by a Sunday afternoon timeslot.

[mets82]

TMC, I don't know if you know this but you may want to pull the original article written by Steve Lepore. Guy is a sicko.

Take a look at this link. http://deadspin.com/hockey-blogger-f...men-1665117935