RR post_id=59614 time=1640078402 user_id=827 Wrote:Meanwhile Vaughan has arrived in Australia, and is commentating on the Big Bash at the moment, and has been heard on Sky Sports.
I wonder if BT tried to get Fox to drop him first? It all seems a bit much just replace one commentator, a bit like using a sledgehammer to smash a nut. I'm sure they wouldn't have many commentators left if they got rid of all the ones who have said something unsavoury at the some point in the past. Although I suspect it's more to protect the wider BT brand than the BT Sport brand.
bkman1990 post_id=59600 time= user_id=922 Wrote:If the PL is suffering with rising cases of Covid as we head into the new year. What does that do for the predicted impact be on UEFA's tournaments & European Qualifiers in 2022. Is Omicron having any effect on other football clubs who take part in the ECL, EL & UCL?
The club competitions won't resume till February and the internationals in March so I think it's a case of wait and see rather than speculate for the sake of speculation.
Jon post_id=59635 time= user_id=1050 Wrote:RR post_id=59614 time=1640078402 user_id=827 Wrote:Meanwhile Vaughan has arrived in Australia, and is commentating on the Big Bash at the moment, and has been heard on Sky Sports.
I wonder if BT tried to get Fox to drop him first? It all seems a bit much just replace one commentator, a bit like using a sledgehammer to smash a nut. I'm sure they wouldn't have many commentators left if they got rid of all the ones who have said something unsavoury at the some point in the past. Although I suspect it's more to protect the wider BT brand than the BT Sport brand.
I think, were it not for Covid, they'd have a lot more people on site. For the 2017/18 series, presentation and commentary were both done from the ground, and I'd imagine they'd have wanted to do that again - but Australia have only last week eased their border restrictions, so it would have been difficult to get enough people there in time for the first test (plus a bit of a gamble about whether things would have changed by the time you'd planned it all).
Commentary on site is generally better than off-tube comms, but perhaps not so much when it's your opposing side's commentary!
Reduced crowds in Scotland from Boxing Day - only 500 allowed in outdoor venues.
For all the talk about what happened with coverage of the Premier League and EFL (on iFollow), I've absolutely no idea what happened broadcasting wise with the Scottish Premier League and Football League for matches held behind closed doors. I think for 2019/20 they abandoned the season for the lower leagues, but was there at least enhanced coverage of the Scottish Premier League?
I think BT's decision to use their own commentary has been made easier with the quality of the commentary they have recieved from Fox. Quite a few times the studio has criticised the commentary, and with it being quite Australian heavy and a bit partisan at times, not many will be totally saddened if it is dropped. I bet nobody ever had a bet on David Gower working for BT Sport though :lol:
Brekkie post_id=59655 time= user_id=976 Wrote:For all the talk about what happened with coverage of the Premier League and EFL (on iFollow), I've absolutely no idea what happened broadcasting wise with the Scottish Premier League and Football League for matches held behind closed doors. I think for 2019/20 they abandoned the season for the lower leagues, but was there at least enhanced coverage of the Scottish Premier League?
For 2019-20 they abandoned the Premiership season in March. In 2020-21 clubs could do their own PPV for games with zero/reduced capacity which were not already scheduled to be broadcast on Sky.
Brekkie post_id=59655 time= user_id=976 Wrote:For all the talk about what happened with coverage of the Premier League and EFL (on iFollow), I've absolutely no idea what happened broadcasting wise with the Scottish Premier League and Football League for matches held behind closed doors. I think for 2019/20 they abandoned the season for the lower leagues, but was there at least enhanced coverage of the Scottish Premier League?
For 2019/20, the season was
abandonned at all levels, with points per game calculations accounting for who were proclaimed champions/promoted/relegated.
The 2020/21 Premiership season began as normal in August 2020. I don't think Sky had any increase on the ammount of matches shown, but all matches (not on Sky in the UK) were available from the clubs as PPV/with a season ticket; the PPV system is still going as of now, with the 15:00 blackout not yet been reintroduced in Scotland. As
this article explains for Rangers last week, Saturday 15:00 kick-offs are available in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and the rest of the world but not in England.
The leagues below the Premiership started the 2020/21 season in October and those below the Championship were suspended again during most of January and February 2021.
It's been mentioned a few times how odd the match selection has been for the Heineken Champions Cup rugby on Channel 4, but it is not as bizarre as the treatment of the highlights/magazine show The Big Tackle. For the first season, it was a live show at 10:00 ahead of the live coverage, before becoming a pre-recorded programme early on Saturday morning (08:00 ish) with less features and interviews and more highlights of the Friday games and the previous week. Then this year, it changed again to being a highlights show on Sunday nights, with as of this season only one feature (a 60 second quiz for the pundit of the week) remaining. Last season it would air around midnight.
For the last two weeks though, the timing has gone a little surreal. Firstly, it was aired at 01:20 Sunday night, which is late for any new content and late for a sports programme in general. Then the episode on Sunday just gone aired at
02:40!! Especially on a Sunday night ahead of a weekday that is, to put it mildly, odd scheduling. To top it off, neither of this month's editions are on All4, so it's stay up to 4am or nothing if you want to see it (or the YouTube highlights or BT Sport's highlights).
What I also don't understand about this is that it's not like they put next to zero effort into the show and just air it because they can. They don't just show the BT Sport highlights show or have a presenter out of vision linking to edits with the BT commentary. The show is actually a decent production with some effort put in, with a presenter and pundit on the ground, at a different stadium to the live OB on the Saturday too. And they don't just use the BT commentary, but bring in many of their own voices for commentary; of the 15 matches shown this season thus far, two have used the BT commentary, some have had off-tube commentary added on after the macth but quite a few have even had
commentaries done on-site exclusively for the highlights. So, basically, Channel 4 and Sunset+Vine are producing an hour long programme with an outside broadcast only to show it in the middle of a weeknight where a very little audience will watch it - utterly bizarre!
RhysJR post_id=59661 time= user_id=1340 Wrote:The 2020/21 Premiership season began as normal in August 2020. I don't think Sky had any increase on the ammount of matches shown,
They did have more than the 19/20 season, but only because they were no longer sharing the rights with BT.
Covid is starting to cause problems in other countries too:
Salernitana aren't being allowed to travel to Udinese, but the match hasn't been postponed - so is likely to kick off with just one team present. (Live on BT Sport 1 at 5.30 if you want to watch the shambles)
RhysJR post_id=59666 time= user_id=1340 Wrote:It's been mentioned a few times how odd the match selection has been for the Heineken Champions Cup rugby on Channel 4, but it is not as bizarre as the treatment of the highlights/magazine show The Big Tackle. For the first season, it was a live show at 10:00 ahead of the live coverage, before becoming a pre-recorded programme early on Saturday morning (08:00 ish) with less features and interviews and more highlights of the Friday games and the previous week. Then this year, it changed again to being a highlights show on Sunday nights, with as of this season only one feature (a 60 second quiz for the pundit of the week) remaining. Last season it would air around midnight.
For the last two weeks though, the timing has gone a little surreal. Firstly, it was aired at 01:20 Sunday night, which is late for any new content and late for a sports programme in general. Then the episode on Sunday just gone aired at 02:40!! Especially on a Sunday night ahead of a weekday that is, to put it mildly, odd scheduling. To top it off, neither of this month's editions are on All4, so it's stay up to 4am or nothing if you want to see it (or the YouTube highlights or BT Sport's highlights).
Really odd - usually the available on demand excuse is used to justify such shoddy scheduling, but if that's not the case it's baffling. No doubt it's probably repeats of the likes of Gogglebox pushing it further and further back too.
Of course not too many years ago C4 used to have a neat little portfolio of sports shows overnight (Tuesdays or Thursdays I think) including Beach Volleyball and other random shows (think they picked up Gillette World of Sport at one point). For a period these did actually move over to 4Music just to be a bit more random before vanishing completely.
I've just heard from RTÉ News that Munster & Leinster's URC match in Thomond Park on St Stephen's Day has been postponed due to more Covid cases in the Leinster camp. That is a major pity. It's the 2nd year in a row that this game has been distrupted during the Christmas period.
Quite a bit of top-right quadrant drift on tonight’s Arsenal v Sunderland EFL Cup game live on Sky Sports ME/Football. Appears to be different cameras but seemingly only on replays, so I suspect one of the EVS outputs is at fault.