It's amazing to me that the World Poker Tour got it right on their very first outing, but ESPN-- with all their experience covering events-- got it very, very wrong in their coverage of the Scrabble All Stars Tournament they sponsored. Let's count the problems:
The World Poker Tour focuses on the game. We gain insight by seeing it played by top players. A similar format could have been used here. Alternatively, it would have been equally fascinating to hear more commentary from the stadium room where the eliminated players watched the final. ESPN had a number of ways to go here, and they chose one that condescended to the viewer, illuminated nothing about the game, and was a complete snooze. Shuffle up and play already!
Posted by Peter at November 17, 2003 11:47 AMI should loan you some of my old tapes so you can see how ESPN used to do the World Series of Poker. They're shamefully bad (even the one you can see me in). It seems the guys who give us Chris "every name I say has to be a bad pun" Berman, don't think much of the intelligence of their audience. It's not much of a coincidence that this is the first year that they've paid attention to the inherent drama of the game in their WSOP coverage; it comes only after a year of World Poker Tour was successfully shot and proved to them that the game is a good spectator sport. I guess we can just wait fifteen years for them to figure that out for Scrabble, or you can hope the Travel Channel gets into the act and forces their hand.
Posted by: Nathan Beeler on November 17, 2003 1:19 PMI agree whole-heartedly with the sentiments on the televised Scrabble tourney, but did you see how ESPN took the exact opposite approach on the chess match between Kasparov and X3D Fritz?
First of all, they televised it *live*, so we literally sat there for 20+ minutes while Kasparov worked his way out of a sticky situation. The commentators were horrible. They may have been excellent chess players, but they didn't belong behind a microphone.
I enjoyed some of the analysis, but it was kind of disheartening to watch the experts predict (correctly) that the match was going to end in a draw about 45 minutes before it ended.
(Oh, and regarding that female co-anchor on the Scrabble show -- if she had flashed that bright, vacant smile into the camera one more time I think I might have thrown my shoe into the screen)
Posted by: Stephen Glenn on November 20, 2003 4:59 AMI also criticize them for advertising the game was at a certain time, and didn't start until 15 minutes after schedule because the bowling tournament before that was _so_ important to finish. Gah. Since I taped it, I missed the last 15 minutes.
But then again, this is why they put it on a Saturday afternoon where few people were likely to tune in anyway.
They definitely catered to the casual Scrabble player and not the hardcore followers. It was insulting enough that they focused on "words that hardly anyone knows but they use them here."
I agree with all the previous comments. The only redeeming thing I found was that the "top female player" doing commentary was someone who hung out at Jumbletime.com a lot (as did I), which is actually a pretty fun site if you're into anagrams. And it's a tiny site that deserves more recognition, so the plug was kinda cool. That and I never knew what she looked like.
Posted by: Matt Jones on November 20, 2003 12:08 PMHey, at least the bowling tournament had an exciting conclusion!
The Scrabble show did start about ten minutes late, but it didn't run past the hour. In other words, it was only a 50 minute show, not a whole 60. So you might want to check your tape. I would assume you got all, if not most of it.
Posted by: Stephen Glenn on November 22, 2003 10:28 AM