Hard Knocks debuts Tuesday: Can HBO make Dolphins interesting?

Posted on by

The Miami Dolphins weren’t exactly HBO’s first choice for the return of Hard Knocks. The league knocked on a few other doors, namely the Jets. The whole Tebow-Sanchez thing would have been insane.

Rex Ryan, though, said no. At the end of the day, Hard Knocks is stuck chronicling the QB battle between Matt Moore, Ryan Tannehill and David Garrard.

It’s not exactly scintillating stuff, but knowing HBO’s folks, they’ll make it work. The first episode is Tuesday at 10 p.m. ET.

Here’s the trailer. Amazingly, no footage of Dolphin cheerleaders getting ready for the season. Don’t worry, the show is five weeks. If things get dull, HBO will cut to the cheerleaders.

Equestrian? Are you kidding when Bolt is running 100 meters? NBC needs to air more live during weekend

Posted on by

Here is one way to get around NBC’s tape-delay approach to the Olympics.

Spend the weekend at a lake that has limited or no Internet access. Then watch NBC’s coverage at night as if it were live like I did.

What? Can’t get away for the weekend like I did. Well, then you’re screwed.

Once again, Twitter was on fire with angry tweets about NBC’s decision not to provide viewers live coverage of Usain Bolt’s bid for gold in the 100. One positive dividend is the entertaining tweets from #NBCdelayed and elsewhere:

@karljohn  Curiosity actually landed three hours ago, but NBC delayed it until after water polo.

@photoarmy1 Hey everyone NBC is showing live video footage of the landing right now….Neil Armstrong is about to step on the surface.

@bgtennisnation (Brad Gilbert)  Another major foot fault on NBC for not showing the 100 live no other major country would do that still shocked they would do that on Sunday

@EvilMikeTomlin “Usain Bolt leads the 100m after 50m, we’ll be back after this commercial break”- NBC

I think it is going to be tough for NBC to put out this fire. During the week, NBC can justify its line maintaining that people are at work and that it is more convenient for them to watch the big events at night.

But not on the weekend. In case you haven’t heard, viewers watch sports on the weekend. Lots of it.

NBC easily could have shown Bolt’s race live to a large audience. It began late in the afternoon on the East Coast in the U.S. The NFL does fairly strong ratings in that time slot with its doubleheader games.

However, instead of seeing the big race, viewers got taped coverage of equestrian. Yeah, I’m sure horse jumping was second choice on everyone’s list.

Meanwhile, Bolt’s race didn’t air until after 11 p.m. ET. By that time, you had to be on Mars not to know the outcome.

NBC definitely needs to reconsider its stance regarding weekend coverage of the Olympics. We’re conditioned to watch live on the weekend.

And don’t get started with the notion that you could have watched the race live via streaming. The picture quality isn’t nearly the same. Also, by late Sunday afternoon, most viewers need a forklift to pry them free of their big, comfy chairs. Why make it inconvenient for them to have to run to a computer?

As I said, I get the tape-delay approach during the week. But not on the weekend.

You need to be live on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, NBC.

And the latest from NBC:

Usain Bolt still leads after 75 meters. Back in a minute.

 

 

 

Sunday books: Dominique Moceanu reveals other side of gymnastics

Posted on by

The U.S. women/kids gymnasts winning the gold medal Tuesday certainly was a great uplifting story.

However, Dominique Moceanu reveals in her new book that life as a top teenage gymnast isn’t all warm and fuzzy.

From the blurb on Amazon:

AT FOURTEEN YEARS OLD, Dominique Moceanu was the youngest member of the 1996 U.S. Women’s Olympic Gymnastics team, the first and only American women’s team to take gold at the Olympics. Her pixyish appearance and ferocious competitive drive quickly earned her the status of media darling. But behind the fame, the flawless floor routines, and the million-dollar smile, her life was a series of challenges and hardships.Off Balance vividly delineates each of the dominating characters who contributed to Moceanu’s rise to the top, from her stubborn father and long-suffering mother to her mercurial coach, Bela Karolyi. Here, Moceanu finally shares the haunting stories of competition, her years of hiding injuries and pain out of fear of retribution from her coaches, and how she hit rock bottom after a public battle with her parents.

But medals, murder plots, drugs, and daring escapes aside (all of which figure into Moceanu’s incredible journey), the most unique aspect of her life is the family secret that Moceanu discovers, opening a new and unexpected chapter in her adult life. A mysterious letter from a stranger reveals that she has a second sister—born with a physical disability and given away at birth—who has nonetheless followed in Moceanu’s footsteps in an astonishing way.

A multilayered memoir that transcends the world of sports, Off Balance will touch anyone who has ever dared to dream of a better life.

Saturday flashback: Bob Beamon’s amazing record jump in 1968

Posted on by

You can argue all you want about whether Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian. As for the greatest Olympic feat, there should be no debate.

Bob Beamon’s long jump in 1968 has to be No. 1. He broke the world record by nearly two feet!

Watch as Beamon becomes overcome when he finally comes to grips with the reality of what he did. An incredible moment.

Olympic break: Limited posts until Monday

Posted on by

I’m going to be out of pocket for a couple of days. Tell the Olympics to go on without me.

I do have a couple neat Olympic flashbacks for Saturday. So please check the site.

I’ll be back in full force Monday.

Thanks to all who have been visiting and supporting this site.

Have a good weekend.

 

My first job: Costas calls minor league hockey for $30 per game in Syracuse; McCarver recalls Costas’ Uncle Lenny

Posted on by

I’m launching a new feature today called My First Job.

For all the success and accomplishments people have in the business, virtually everyone had a first job that saw them start on the ground floor, or lower. Often, it was a humbling, if not sobering, experience that included a pitfall or two along the way. Call it  learning life’s lessons. The stories are pretty entertaining.

From time to time, I’m going to check in with the now rich and famous to write about where they started in the media game.

With the Olympics taking place, I figured Bob Costas would be a good first subject. Besides hosting the Olympics, he is known for his work on baseball, football, basketball and as an excellent interviewer.

Yet his first paid broadcast job came doing hockey. Here’s Costas:

I called games for the Syracuse Blazers of what was essentially the old Eastern Hockey League. It was the league that Slapshot was based on. I knew many of the people who were extras in the movie. The screenwriter (Nancy Dowd) was the sister of Ned Dowd, who was the goaltender for the Johnstown Jets. The character of Ogie Oglethorpe–and people who have watched this movie 100 times, and I know there are people like that, know this character–he’s based 100 percent on a guy named Bill Harpo, who played for the Syracuse Blazers.

I got $30 per game. I was a senior in Syracuse (Oct., ’73). They didn’t do home games; only road games on the theory that a radio broadcast would hurt the home gate. The team drew very well.

We went to Johnstown, Pa., Lewistown, Maine. They played in the (facility) where Ali knocked out Liston in ’65. We would ride the bus 7-8 hours. You’d get on the bus at 7 in morning. I’d literally be writing term papers and studying lineups at same time while riding the bus.

The learning curve was steep. Not just because I had to teach myself how to broadcast hockey, I wasn’t a polished broadcaster to begin with. I had only done college radio. I had no hockey background.

I got to where I was pretty good. I could definitely keep up with the action.

From there, almost a year later, I’m in St. Louis on KMOX doing Spirits of St. Louis basketball (of the old ABA). That team had the great Marvin Barnes.

When I got to KMOX, it was a broadcast mecca. The station had Jack Buck, Dan Kelly, Bob Starr, one of the best football announcers ever. These were people of real consequence. You had to get better in a hurry just to keep up. By osmosis, I’m sure I learned a lot and improved quicker than I otherwise would have.

Costas eventually went to NBC. In 1980, he worked his first network game with Tim McCarver, who was in his initial days as analyst after retiring from Philadelphia. McCarver remembers the experience:

Bob and I did our first game for the network (NBC) together in 1980. It was Red Sox-Angels. We were the back-up to the back-up game. Maybe six percent of the country saw it.

Bob had an Uncle Lenny. He sat in the truck, and he actually critiqued our broadcast. He was probably the only one who saw it. He said, “You could have done this better.”

I still have a picture from Bob. He signed it, “To Tim: Uncle Lenny would approve.”

We’re the only two people who know what that means.

 

 

 

 

 

 

NBC research president: Digital strategy working; women, young viewers driving high Olympic ratings

Posted on by

For all the fire that is being generated in Twitter over the tape-delay stuff, NBC executives couldn’t be more ecstatic in London.

Ratings for the Olympics have been huge. So big in fact, NBC Universal CEO Steve Burke told analysts the network, which projected nearly $200 million in losses, may break even on the Games.

I had a chance to talk yesterday to Alan Wurtzel, NBC research president.

The basic question: Why are the numbers so big when the network anticipated as much as a 20 percent decrease from Beijing, which had live coverage in primetime in 2008?

Here’s a link to the piece I did today in the Chicago Tribune.

Here’s Wurtzel:

Women and children first:

There are a couple of factors (for the high ratings). No. 1, it’s women (accounting for 17.5 viewers per night, half of the audience). And it’s young women. There’s been a big increase in kids 6-12 and teenagers 12-17.

They grew up as digital babies. By putting the games on all these digital platforms, and have it be combined with social media, which the kids do every day, it has made the Olympics an incredibly relevant event. To be honest, that wasn’t the case that long ago.

Essentially, we’re cultivating the next generation of Olympic viewers.

On live streaming of events at NBCOlympics.com:

We know the people who are watching the streaming are more likely to watch in primetime. Some of them want to see the movie again. Some of them want to hear the comments and analysis. In an interesting way, streaming has served as a barker. They watch and tell their friends, ‘I can’t believe what I just saw.’ Basically, it’s 1 + 1 = 3.

On the ratings validating NBC’s primetime strategy:

Approximately 50 million Americans attended sporting events in the last six months. In five days, 158 Americans watched the Olympics on NBC. That’s says something.

What the primetime show tells us is what the audience wants. We try to give insights into sports they don’t know about. During the men’s relay, the analyst talked about the strategy involved. That was all planned. The audience love the idea of somebody putting it into context.

It’s about sports, but it is so much more than sports. Over 17 days, so many people who never engaged in sports are mesmerized by it.

 

 

Olympics deja vu: People whine, people watch; NBC pulls another huge rating for Tuesday night

Posted on by

Buzz Bissinger weighed in on NBC’s tape-delay strategy this morning in his own unique way.

@buzzbissinger But Comcast/NBC doesn’t give shit. Ratings off the roof. All they care about. Fuck the first amendment. Fuck free speech. Fuck Comcast/NBC.

Really, Buzz, tell us how you feel. Don’t hold back.

The complaining continues, and so does NBC pulling in monster numbers for its primetime coverage.

The Twitter Olympics helped deliver NBC another huge number Tuesday night. The network pulled a 24.0 overnight last night; the best overnight for the London Olympics to date, topping the Opening Ceremony by 4%.

It was 4% higher than the Tuesday night rating for Beijing (23.0/37) & 12% higher than Athens (21.5/33).

Keep mind, NBC expected this year’s rating to be off from Beijing, which had the benefit of live coverage in primetime.

Of course, as we all know from the endless angry tweets, NBC is saving all the good stuff for primetime this year. Prior to last night’s coverage, most people knew the women won in gymnastics and that Michael Phelps had a monumental blunder in the 200 butterfly.

Yet people tuned in, thanks in part to Twitter stirring up interest in those events. Viewers wanted to see what actually happened. How did Phelps fail at the finish? How did those little girls win the gold?

People keep complaining, and people keep watching. Story of the Olympics for NBC.