dtheriault

any time i watch a sports show or pregame show and they have a timer counting down how long someone has to talk.

DEAR GOD PLEASE MAKE IT STOP!

seriously... who started this stupid trend and what will it take to make it end. when fox's football pregame started doing it last year i quit watching their show- i won't watch any show that employes it. can you imagine limiting vin scully, chick hearn, wooden, or anyother insightful sports reporter to 15-20 second sound bites?

i weep for the future of sports broadcasting.

rant over.

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Ace_O_Spades

I personally find all of the commentating pretty sub standard... the pre-game, game, post game... doesn't matter

It's all painfully obvious elementary observations and other assorted crap.

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sgn43

I totally agree with you, and I never really noticed how irritating I find that growing trend. It's just a reflection on the A.D.D. generation we're living in today, which is sad.

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Halx

This is why I pay money to be able to watch and listen to Vin Scully while I live out here in NY.

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dylanmarsh

As I have said numerous times before, Tim McCarver needs to be stopped. Biased, ignorant, and an overall lack of intelligence has filled the last 15 years of post season baseball. It still warms my heart to think about Deion Sanders dumping a tub of gatorade over McCarver's head; however, I wish it had been boiling coffee and/or hydrochloric acid.

sgn43

It's a shame the golden voice of baseball is retired now. He and Chick Hearn were a couple of the last few links to the golden ages of sports reporting. However, I like the choice of Charlie Steiner as the replacement for Scully. No one can replace Vin, but at least Charlie brings a good bit of knowledge and class with his own bit of humor to the broadcasts.

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goddfather40

Hmmm...Seems I was watching the Dodger game last night on FSN2 and it sounded like Vin was calling the game

Actually, I think Charlie Steiner replaced Ross Porter.

Getting back to the subject of the thread:

I'll try to put this delicately, I think the fact that networks feel an obligation to cover women's sports is annoying. It is a waste of time, in my opinion. As people on this board have alluded to women's sports and men's sports are 'apples and oranges.' No comparison.

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djtestudo

I think the timing works under certain circumstances.

For example, on Pardon the Interruption, when they are trying to get through a lot of topics at once, it can help keep the show moving.

However, I can see your point about it on pre/post-game shows.

As for women's sports, I have no problem covering them, except when it comes at the expense of a men's sport that is more likely to be watched.

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Rdr4evr

Add me to the list of broadcaster haters. Fox is pretty pathetic man...Aikman and Buck? Please, fingernails on a chalkboard would be more pleasurable than listening to those annoying cunts. Besides Fox though, all broadcasters annoy me for the most part. I use to like Al and Madden, but their ass kissing is starting to get out of hand, thus annoying me like the rest of them.
EDIT: also, blowing every tiny thing out of proportion is extremely annoying as well. (i.e Moss moon)

canuckguy

I think on WGN? or the station that does the chicago white socks games, the play by play guys always refer to chicago as "good guys" for example "its 1-0 good guys, good guys coming out to bat..." freaking annoying. I have to watch on mute now. and if you were blind and were just listening to the game it would take you until the 7th inning before they finally mention the other team chicago is playing. Normally the home announcers spend sometime describing and telling stories about the visiting team, not these guys. although my view is from a jays fan...btw they smoked boston today....sweet.

dylanmarsh

another exerpt from WGN: "YOU CAN PUT IT ON THE BOAAAARRDDD, YES!"

and people wonder why no one gives two shits about the ChiSox.

canuckguy

don't know how i could have forgot that line!! makes me cringe just reading it.

sgn43

ha...my mistake. but, Charlie is slowly taking over responsibilities and is being groomed for when Vin does retire...heh...yeah, I know what I'm talking about. :\



and good point, djtestudo. in certain situations, the timed response thing can work, but I think there should be a prerequisite that the people involved need to know what the hell they're talking about and at least bring up some compelling points other than the same crap everyone else is saying.

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pan6467

Cleveland and Cincy have always had good radio broadcasters. You all can have Scully, I'll take Brenneman and Nuxhull anyday (although Nuxy is calling it quits and truly limits his broadcasts)....

The most annoying thing I hate in sports today is probably the fact that people want fights and it seems anger is pervailing. Perhaps sports has always seen this in the USA and the media has just really started showing more of it. But when people jump out of the stands and attack players, coaches and umpires or when players, coaches and umpires start going into the stands on a regular basis, something is seriously wrong. Not to be political, but I think the anger is more deep rooted than sports.

People are tired of high salaries, players crying they don't get enough millions of dollars, while families can barely support themselves and are in so much debt they don't know what to do.

It's a sad state of affairs and seems to keep just getting worse.

(Also since when is poker, blackjack and darts sports..... wtf? Are ESPN and Fox so desperate for events that they have to fill it with gambling commercials?)

Here's an idea..... why not instead of teaching kids and showing how glamourous gambling is supposed to be..... you program sports like English soccer, The WFL in Europe, show sports for the love of God.... sports.....

or maybe during the summer broadcast This Week In Baseball and have televised clinics with some football, basketball and baseball stars showing kids how to play the sport and how to be sportsman and not freaking spoiled brats.......

Oh wait most of the athletes today don't know what sportsmanship and being good sports are.... they are spoiled brats.

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d3cemberist

Dear god, Yes that is very annoying.

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Cross-Over

The only time I hear "YOU CAN PUT IT ON THE BOAAAARRDDD, YES!" is when Sports Center will play the sound of that call. I actually like it, one of my favorites. To each his own though.

I agree with the consensus that broadcasting can be poor and annoying. I remember one CBS NFL announcer (not a popular one, forget who) was repeating the same thing over and over and over, and this took place in a five minute time span before the kickoff.

I think broadcasting is the most annoying thing in sports today, because it is something that exists during the actual game. I don't often watch much of the pregame shows in, so I avoid some of the repetitive story lines. However, during the game, I can't avoid that same repetition and other crap without muting the television, which takes away from the viewing atmosphere.

guy44

Extreme parity in football. Aside from the Pats, which teams will be good, bad, or mediocre next season? Nobody knows.

Also, exceedingly low playoff thresholds in the NFL and NBA and NHL. I mean, when .500 or below teams are regularly making the playoffs, it is just rediculous. People have conniption fits over a mere 8 teams making the MLB playoffs, but three 8-8 NFL teams are OK?

And, lastly, yes, broadcasting has gotten very, very annoying. Stupidity and a lack of insight run rampant. During today's Reds game, I heard the color guy say, "Pedro Martinez, guys like him aren't Hall of Famers because they played in just one league or another. Those guys are gamers." What The Fuck Does That Mean?

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dtheriault

do you remember that football game a while back where they had no announcing at all?

I like to hear the sounds of the game, i used to go to live events to escape the mindless chatter but now it's like your at a concert instead of a ball game.

i wish they had just a play by play guy and the color commentator was only allowed to add "color" once every 3 minutes. 3 guys in the booth should be banned forever.

I agree that the WNBA is pretty annoying. I also think that watching the MLS is annoying- it would be like watching euro basketball... if your going to try and convince americans that soccer is exciting at least let them watch the best in the world- such as the various premier leagues.

my 20 seconds are up.

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guthmund

I would take Aikman/Buck any day of the week over Simms/Gumbel.

Simms is such a bandwagon waffler (sometimes switching sides mid-game)and instead of calling him on his shit, Gumbel eagerly kisses his ass in between "CBS Mondays" plugs.

I can't think of any football announcers worth a shit off the top of my head.

I certainly understand the dislike for McCarver. He used to call all the games for St. Louis on Fox Sports. Thank goodness they managed to find an equally annoying Al Hrabosky to fill McCarver's uneducated shoes.


Aside from the announcing, the most annoying thing in sports is the pre-game shows. A bunch of former sports stars looking uncomfortable in suits spouting statistics desperately trying to make some obscure point for an hour. For an hour?!?! Worse yet, are when the hosts go round the table to pick the winners. Like I give a flying fart who Jim Nantz and Boomer are picking in the Cleveland/Cincinnati game.

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Rdr4evr

You are correct, and unfortunately those two morons end up broadcasting some of our games on that God awful CBS we get stuck with. I don't know though man, all four of them are painfully annoying, but if I were to eliminate two, it would be Buck and Simms, I think between them, I could atleast somewhat endure Aikman/Gumbel for 3 hours. I honestly can't think of any broadcaster I particularly like off the top of my head.

dylanmarsh

Well, I definitely think this could extend to all sports. 99% of the guys out there suck. I usually turn the radio on during TV broadcasts and substitute the play by play. WEEI in Boston has some great play by play guys.

Also, I might take some flack for this, but Gary Thorne does a great job calling the Stanley Cup playoff games so long as the games don't involve a NY Tri-State area team. I'm always afraid he's gonna have a stroke with his intensity. Bill Clement is his yang, though; meaningless gibber and the constant "I love Stevie Yzerman" crap.

heccubusiv

local sports announcers, football announcers who say that everyone is the most undrated person, the steriod alligations. Its a modern day commie hunt

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highthief

Soccer riots that kill dozens of people top my list. Booing other country's national anthems, booing the pope, these suck. The one guy on every board who feels it is his sacred duty to rip apart female athletes because he doesn't think their tits are big enough or he can't get laid.

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guthmund

No doubt. When the Cardinal games are on, I prefer to listen to Mike Shannon, who does the radio broadcast.

Rdr4evr, any combination is alright in my book as long as Simms isn't involved.
I don't watch a lot of the NFC games Buck calls, but his comments on Moss' mooning the fans was so over the top....

I don't remember him being quite so indignatious when he was calling Cardinal games.

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Catmandu

I think the most annoying thing in sports today happens from April thru October: baseball. It's all over the TV, pre-empting good stuff. It's player's are fat overpaid whiners who go on the DL for a blister or hangnail. It sucks good athletes away from true athletic endeavors because of the money. I can honestly say that I would rather watch curling than baseball.

ScottKuma

Most annoying thing in sports today?

Hockey...or the lack thereof.

I actually LIKE the timer (at least on PTI, I don't know about on other shows). I agree that it keeps it fresh, keeps the hosts from going ON and ON and ON about a single subject for hours.

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dylanmarsh

I think you are confusing baseball with NASCAR. As such, I won't hold your post against you.

wolf

OK, let me come right out and say that I am a Boston sports fan. I have been a Red Sox fan since I can remember, same with the pats, the celts and the B's.


I cannot stand it when one of the Boston teams, usually the Pats, are having a great year and no major sports commentator will credit them with being fantastic. It took the Pats 3 superbowl wins to get a shred of respect. If a team is doing great, I don't care where they are from, give them the fucking credit they deserve, especially since the commentators are sitting on their asses!

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Catmandu

Cool. The Boston sports fans are jaded already. Winning World Series and Super Bowls isn't good enough now. John Kerry is probably relieved he didn't win.

jobu

the most annoying thing to me is watching cubs games and not having steve stone to listen to. no one is better at describing the intricacies of the game that stone. he is one of the best baseball minds out there and it was a shame that dusty baker was threatened by that.

dtheriault

I CHANGED MY MIND!

The most annoying thing in sports today is attention whores on their cell phones mugging for the camera behind the batter in baseball. Ya you with the goatee at the Angels game.

"LOOK AT ME! I'M A DORK!"

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dy156

This weekend is full of annoyance for me in the sports world. Here are but a few examples:

1) professional football scouts have a job to do, and they're better at it than anyone else. It's their livelihood. Yet they are wron about 2/5ths of the time. Therefore many people expected to be good in the NFL turn out to be terrible. Remember Tony Mandarich, Ryan Leaf, etc... Yet sportscasters, who have even less of a clue than these people that specialize in evaluating NFL talent, feel compelled to offer their opinion on the draft and every prospect of the draft. Give me a break. I actually respect Mel Kiper, he has found a niche and capitalizes on it. Just about every other broadcater or radio personality that analyzes the draft annoys me.

2) The NBA playoff system. First of all there are too many regular season games. Who actually starts watching the NBA before mid-December? Seattle vs. Sacramento is pathetic. Both squads are so banged up, they've limped into the playoffs based on their performances of months ago, and everyone knows that even the winner of that series is likely to get clobbered in round 2. Houston/Dallas pits two of the three hottest teams going into the playoffs together. I don't deny that I'm a Mavs fan. I stayed up and watched them get beat by the Lakers in game 7 of the Conference finals back in the day. (the Dick Motta, Donaldson, Aguirre, and Blackmon vs, Pat Riley, Magic, Worthy, and Jabbar day.)
Nevertheless, I always dislike division based playoffs in a league where everyone plays everyone. It's arbitrary and, frankly, stupid. Pit the 4 best teams from each conference, if you must divide it into conferences against each other. Better yet, have a six team playoff with the six teams that actually have a shot of claiming the title, even if Dallas is the fifth of those six teams. (Spurs, Miami, Suns, Pistons, Mavs, and Rockets)

3) Show me sports with people moving fast. Even if it's women's basketball,soccer, rugby, or college baseball, rather than a weekend of the NFL draft. Please, one pick every 15 minutes the first two rounds?!! It's one thing to miss it and have to see the scoreboard on ESPN the next night or read it in the paper, because you missed the game. You miss seeing what actually happened, and missed watching a spectacular pysical display. On the other hand, whay can't we all just sit back and do something non-sports related this Saturday and read about what happenned in the draft in the Sunday paper? It will be just as informative, and will not have sucked a day out of our lives having done nothing more than watch a man in a suit talk about potential NFL players that might make it, but very well might not..

3)[QUOTE=guthmund]I would take Aikman/Buck any day of the week over Simms/Gumbel.

Simms is such a bandwagon waffler (sometimes switching sides mid-game)and instead of calling him on his shit, Gumbel eagerly kisses his ass in between "CBS Mondays" plugs.
[QUOTE=guthmund]

Yup. I'd rather listen to Aikman, Johnston, and Theisman, who are opinionated, but have an actual basis for it, anyday.

4) Draft gurus that talk about, and put too much emphasis on, the combine. Watch Film! How good was Jerry Rice, Emmit Smith, Walter Payton, or Joe Montana at the combine?! Remember the guy named Mamulka a few years ago that absolutely blew everyone away at the combine? He played a couple of years for the Eagles, had an unspactacular career, and that was it. So what if Maurice Clarrett and Cedric Benson had a slow 40 time, and Matt Jones showed he was a stellar athlete?! Look at their college careers and remember former draft darlings and NFL busts. Matt Jones can't hang onto, much less throw the ball, and has never played defense. mark my words, Maurice Clarrett will show up on Sportscenter after making plays as a back-up in the NFL. Aprt from the names everyone hears about, I really wish NFL people would look at guys that are "too small" or not athletic enough but somehow still seem to get the job done. I know the big XII, and just as examples, Dat Nguyen of the Cowboys and Zach Thomas, Dolphins, fit this example.

5) Watching sad teams make sad decisions. I know that San Diego, Cleveland, San Fransico, Washington, Minnesota, and Dallas are going to screw it up, I just know it. Even though any of them could really help themselves.

Okay, enough ranting.

guthmund

I completely agree.

Of all the other sports that annoy me the most, it has to be basketball. The games are always on. If they aren't on, then they're fixing to be on. And when you think it's all over, here come the playoffs. If they're not playing here, it's at the Olympics (when they're going) or exhibition games. Mixed in with all the college basketball, tournaments, and exhibition games...well it's overkill.

With baseball, there's like a five month gap, with football it's like seven, which gives us fans a chance to miss and anticipate it's return.

How long does the NBA off season last? As a casual fan (me), there doesn't really seem to be much of an off season.

Again, I completely agree. The draft is kind of exciting. Television exciting? Not hardly. Especially with all the television "personalities" all putting their two cents in to kill time in between all the forced hoopla. The only thing relatively exciting last year was the Eli Manning debacle, but I could have been just as disgusted reading it in the Sunday paper.

And a few short thoughts...

And the combine? Well, the whole thing just really stinks. It's like a meat market of the damned.

I completely understand the Boston teams getting no respect. Even on that first Superbowl run (ARghhh) all I kept hearing was how it was the dream season. Like it's a friggin' fluke they made it to the playoffs. Now sportscasters, ashamed of not paying due respect, now just don't comment on them at all except to see how many times they can put "genius," "Bill Belicheck," and "dynasty," together in a sentence in an attempt to look like they were fans all along and by extension be considered brilliant.

Lets' not talk about NASCAR. Going to the event up close and personal is one thing, to sit at home and watch it on television for endless hours is quite another.

Mmmmm. maybe not so short

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Konichiwaneko

I love the Braves broadcaster.

Don, Skip, Joe, Chip, and Pete are amazing guys. I've personally met Pete's wife and son and they are gems. Great people, and they make listening to braves baseball exciting.

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dougiefresh

Interviewing athletes. They never say anything interesting unless they are being assholes. Lets face it, most of these guys don't care to let us know whats going on or aren't bright enough to express themselves.

MikeyChalupa

In no particular order:

FOX Sports. Every fucking thing about it. Particularly when they show a commercial for an upcoming show over and over, and then throw an animated graphic over the start of the inning anyway and have the announcers mention it. Then they show you the stars who got free box seats to the game, or send the roving clown to bullshit with them while the game is going on so you miss the play.

Oh yes, those asshats on the cell phones suck eggs too.

Teams that have changed their uniform at least 3 times in the last 10 years.

Ads on the field of play (painted on or digitally added) or on player uniforms.

-Mikey

docbungle

I hate the HBO boxing commentators.

Larry Merchant tries to turn every discussion into a deep philisophical rant.

The play-by-play (or punch-by-punch) guy, whatever his name is, overreacts to virtually everything: he'll say things like "Oh, and Corrales was just wobbled by that devastating right!" when in reality he was only hit with a jab that didn't really effect him at all.

And Roy Jones Jr. as a commentator. He hasn't been doing it long enough to really suck at it, but not very impressive so far.

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