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Pro Tour Live Coverage
- Thread starter RootsDiscGolf
- Start date
While I appreciate the opinions on commentary, I would think that logistics are far more a determinate than personality. I would guess you would be hard pressed to find a top competing MPO to spend 5+ hours prep and the actual broadcast and then travel to a potentially different course to play a round for their livelihood.
Regardless of whom we find to make anyone here happy, the resulting opinions will never be one. Everyone's opinion of commentary is wildly different. This is evident in every sport. I personally think that the Doss combo has been fantastic.
Regardless of whom we find to make anyone here happy, the resulting opinions will never be one. Everyone's opinion of commentary is wildly different. This is evident in every sport. I personally think that the Doss combo has been fantastic.
What he just described is how I watch as a fan. When I watch basketball (as a fan I never played beyond rec league in early high school) if a team adds a wrinkle to their pick and roll coverage that I didn't notice - I'd like to have it pointed out and I'd like it clear in the camera angles what is going on. In the NBA I get frustrated when they use the court level cameras, they're good for getting a better sense of what its like on the court but they impede the way I watch as a fan. The same goes for when they spend too much time on the reaction shots in disc golf and miss the shot that is being shaped.
I don't know about fantastic - they talk over each other an awful lot to call it fantastic. There are way too many moments where they're both trying to say something. I like what they bring, but they need to learn to stop stepping on each others' toes before I can even call them fantastic for beginners.
- Joined
- May 6, 2011
- Messages
- 650
All this talk about Val and Nate is beside the point, in my opinion.
Even if the video quality and commentating quality improves a lot, the fundamental problem for me still remains, that is all the downtime. I've tried watching live a few times and always it's disappointing. It's just not fun (for me) to watch people walking up the fairway, debating who's next, testing the wind 5 times, moving a few branches from their lie, and on and on...
It's probably already been said a few times in this thread, but...Someone needs to make a LOT more money off of disc golf media, enough to invest in whatever equipment/staff they need for live coverage of multiple holes at a time, in real time. I know that is a tall order, and they are heading in the right direction, and I wish them luck. But the post-produced videos are too excellent, and live coverage is just nowhere close to competing with that...yet
Even if the video quality and commentating quality improves a lot, the fundamental problem for me still remains, that is all the downtime. I've tried watching live a few times and always it's disappointing. It's just not fun (for me) to watch people walking up the fairway, debating who's next, testing the wind 5 times, moving a few branches from their lie, and on and on...
It's probably already been said a few times in this thread, but...Someone needs to make a LOT more money off of disc golf media, enough to invest in whatever equipment/staff they need for live coverage of multiple holes at a time, in real time. I know that is a tall order, and they are heading in the right direction, and I wish them luck. But the post-produced videos are too excellent, and live coverage is just nowhere close to competing with that...yet
Yep, I agree Chris. My superlative was definitely in relation to their experience and the situation. I think it is hard to probably find a comparable group, given they are not professional broadcasters and the broadcast is essentially an amateur production.
I get you. See, I enjoy all those things. BUT.....I watch disc golf, like I watch baseball. Watching is passive for baseball, I am doing something else while viewing. There is so much down time that I find it is a sit back and watch type thing. Opposed to hockey, which I see a an active viewing sport. Edge of the seat, non stop action. I think we would all like a PGA type, multiple camera groups, non stop coverage setup. But, you have already highlighted the primary barrier.
I guess I critique it harder than I should because we've already had good quality live productions....years ago. And as a fan it's a bit frustrating for the quality of the production to be on such a roller coaster ride. I mean..they were doing it just fine...4 1/2 years ago.
The Masters isn't even in real time. The "live" shots they show you from other cards usually have happened a few minutes prior. And they have a group of about 60 editors throwing that together. But that is semantics.
Here is a quick breakdown. For every card you want to cover well, you need minimum of 2 cameramen & 1 switcher (my job). Ignore things like replay, graphics, etc. And with the cameramen could include roughly 5K-20K worth of equipment between cameras and cell streamers depending on the quality you get. I can get away with covering 1 card well and inserting extra shots on the fly like we did for Worlds. But if you start to add more than that, you need an ADDITIONAL person to coordinate cutting the stuff together and feeding it to the main switcher. It gets very big very quick.
And I understand that people don't want to watch a lot of the extra downtime. I just have a hard time because the post production can't or hasn't replicated any drama nearly to the degree that you get with live. Even this weekend in Jonesboro watching PP come down 18 was awesome, every shot had pressure and something on the line.
I have been thinking about this a lot lately. How many niche sports are free to watch live usually? I think we have painted ourselves in a corner. In a perfect world we should be charging for live & post production and keeping them exclusive for a few weeks before releasing them public. The people that care will pay and that can help offset costs. Then when the sport is big enough you can bring in sponsors to offset the costs and maybe go to a free model. I think we are doing it backwards in our sport starting out free and waiting to build a cost effective model. Because we are letting people get used to all this free content, it is going to be harder to go the other way.
Now, I don't think it is going to change. It was just a thought I had.
This was a SmashBoxxTV production under the SpinTV banner. I look at that and it makes me cringe a bit at the shoddiness that I see from the cutting that I did and the camerawork that was shaky. It was a decent production for it's time.
I look at the USDGC from this past year and I may be in the minority but I didn't love that production either. I thought that the area around hole 17 was great and I liked Jamie & Avery, but other than that it was a worse version of every other production we have seen. I kinda give them a pass because it was Fulcrums first time covering disc golf, but on the other hand, they had twice the crew and paid 3 times as much. Pros and Cons.
Is any of this really free? Considering someone above was talking about the revenue from things like advertisers and patreon - this isn't free. Right now this is being paid for. It just happens to be paid for by, in large part, a big chunk of people who do believe in maintaining this sort of 'free' coverage for all - in the hopes that over time this establishes a standard where it is viable for true advertiser paid coverage to be considered stable - coverage that we're paying for purely with our eyeballs.
I'm not saying its necessarily the best route - just pointing out that what we're getting now isn't free, really. More subsidized.
brutalbrutus
* Ace Member *
Surfing competitions have been around a bit longer than DG but not by much. I would imagine the number of people that know that there is competitive surfing is vastly larger than people that know about Pro DG, considering the shear volume of countries that are involved. Brazil has gone absolutely bananas over surfing the last ten years. Then you have the obvious Australians, S Africans, Hawaiians, West Coast, Florida and all the other countries that participate(Portugal, Britain, France, Japan, Indonesia, New Zealand, etc... The World Surf League has free broadcasts on FBlive, YT and their own site depending on the level of the event. Their YT channel has about 600k+ subs...
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It is free from a lot of the media crews. Jomez, CCDG, DGPT, & TDGG have all been using Patreon. And those are the best and most loyal of their fans. So you are right that it is subsidized for some crews.
I think he meant free to watch, not free to produce. I don't have to pay Smashboxx or DGPT or Jomez or CCDG or any other producers a dime and I get to watch their broadcasts and edited productions immediately after they're made available.
Obviously someone is paying for it. Someone's always paying for everything that is "free". I think what Jonny is saying that perhaps the people that are ponying up money, be it advertisers, sponsors, or Patreon subscribers, should get first crack at watching before making the videos available to all at no charge.
I don't think he's wrong. Just a guess, but I bet Jomez could double their Patreon subscription payouts simply by making their next day videos Patreon exclusive for even just a few days. You want to watch Friday's round on Saturday afternoon/evening, or the entire tournament (Fri-Sun) on Monday night...be a paid subscriber. Don't want to pay, wait until the following Friday night for the free release.
That is a very good example. And maybe we just look at starting out with our Majors or just our PT/NT/Majors? All A-tiers are free or something. Lots of options to pursue if anyone is brave enough to do it.
This is honestly something I have been telling Ian & Terry for a long time now. And Ian does it with Champs vs Chumps.
You could watch pro surfing competition on ABC's Wide World of Sports back in the 1970's. Pretty captive audience, given only three channels to watch.
brutalbrutus
* Ace Member *
Redbull still does TV broadcasts of the events they sponsor but mostly they are months or at the least several weeks later. There were a couple Big Wave events broadcast live on NBCsports last fall though but those are usually just one day events, when the regular tour is usually spread out over multiple days. They did do the Surf Ranch live on nbcs also but that's a unique event where the weather/waves aren't a factor.
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- Joined
- May 6, 2011
- Messages
- 650
Yes I understand some of those shots aren't exactly live but "moments ago" or whatever, and some delays are needed to get them into a sequence for airing. Still, doesn't change my point, that it needs to get closer to that level for me to really sit down and watch 3-4 hours of it.
Thanks for the peek behind the scenes to see what's required to pull it off... wow it will take a lot of resources (beyond what's currently available) to make the live coverage competitive with the post-produced, from my perspective.
But it is great you are taking steps in that direction! Thanks to you and the rest of your team for sticking your necks out on this. Hopefully you will get the return on investment!
I'm saying that Val makes the most sense for the time being because a) she's willing, b) she's available, and c) she has a base of knowledge that few others can match. I mean, I thought Hannah McBeth did a good job co-commentating FPO Worlds with Terry last year. She was prepared, she was eloquent. But compared to Val, she's a rookie golfer. I'd rather hear insights from Nick Faldo (6X Major champion) on the Masters broadcast than a random rookie golfer who didn't get an invitation to play, no matter how well spoken that rookie might be.
Someone else put their finger on the biggest issue with Nate and Val being on together...they both have insights and analysis, and they wind up talking over or past each other trying to make their points. They'd both benefit from having someone who sets up their analysis and then gets out of their way to let them make their points.
