The Sport Thread

[RhysJR]

New Zealand v Ireland: Alex Payne, ROG, and Sean Fitzpatrick in the studio, Conor McNamara, Alan Quinlan, and Isa Nacewa on comms, Sky NZ graphics.

South Africa v Wales: Sarra Elgin, Sam Warburton, Jonathan Davies in the studio, Martin Gillingham, Jamie Roberts, Bryan Habana on comms, SuperSport graphics.

For completeness...

Australia v England: Alex Payne with Dylan Hartley, Maggie Alphonsi and Will Greenwood in the studio, Miles Harrison, David Flatman and Michael Lynagh on comms, Eleanor Roper reporting. Using the Stan Sport graphics.

Stan's coverage was also shown on the linear Channel 9 and I hope this won't extend to British screens (I doubt it would).
https://twitter.com/willgkelleher/status...7166413825

Argentina v Scotland: Sarra Elgan with Stuart Hogg and Jim Hmailton in the studio, Jmaie Lyall and Rory Lawson on comms. Rupert Cox reporting. Using new look ESPN graphics (the Chile match last week used the old-style ESPN graphics I believe). The ESPN graphics are like Supersport's along the bottom of the screen.

Although I'm not a fan of the score across the bottom the Supersport graphics and how they integrate all the extra info (tries, sin bins etc.) is really nice.

Especially like the addition of the number of the player with a yellow card. A minor addition that doesn't clutter up their scoreboard much but can be useful (apart from Wales have almost too many yellow cards to fit on the graphic...)


Meanwhile Japan are still using their knock-off version of the 2015 RWC graphics (themselves based on the 2011 RWC/Sky NZ graphics of taht era. The teams even change sides on the graphics like those old Sky NZ graphics/2011 RWC graphics did.

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Jamie Lyall on comms on Scotland for two different broadcasters on two consecutive Saturdays. I'm suspecting the commentary for this match is off-tube with Rupert Cox reporting from Argentina and not being on commentary. All other Sky comms have been on site, with England also getting a reporter.

[Brekkie]

Talking of teams changing side on the graphics I think it would actually be quite useful on the tennis for the names to change when the players change end so they reflect who is at the top and bottom of the picture.

And yes, Wales very much stress testing their sin bin graphic there.

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Stan's coverage was also shown on the linear Channel 9 and I hope this won't extend to British screens (I doubt it would).

https://twitter.com/willgkelleher/status...7166413825

Yes, ads in breaks of play in both codes of rugby (and I'm guessing AFL) is quite common on the Aussie FTA channels - even miss conversions sometimes.

Not something I would like to see, but with a mandatory drinks break bought in to the South Africa v Wales games (for some reason they didn't want anyone running on with water whenever they liked!) and drinks breaks increasingly a feature of football too (no doubt they'll be in the World Cup given the location) it's surely only a matter of time before ads can be inserted in those.   I think the only thing preventing it at the moment is UEFA and FIFA require whistle to whistle coverage (as we saw with the Erikson situation), but it feels like a question of when, not if - especially with the World Cup expanding in such a way which will offer more matches but not necessarily create more ad revenue for broadcasters.

[Transmission]

Stan's coverage was also shown on the linear Channel 9 and I hope this won't extend to British screens (I doubt it would).

https://twitter.com/willgkelleher/status...7166413825

Yes, ads in breaks of play in both codes of rugby (and I'm guessing AFL) is quite common on the Aussie FTA channels - even miss conversions sometimes.

Yep, in AFL they take breaks after every goal.

Quite recently they've started sometimes doing it during football (as in soccer) as well - they normally try to take them in the kinds of places you'd normally feel safe to show a replay, like when there's an injury or a goal kick, but it still seemed very risky!

[RhysJR]

The ESPN graphics. It's Argentina's first home match since 2019 so not sure if these are in regular use but the older style is still in use in clips of various ESPN programming (soccer and tennis in the US for example).
https://twitter.com/SkySportsRugby/statu...xGxktEn8Uw


S4C's highlights of Wales using the SuperSport graphics fully in Welsh, even with the S4C logo replacing the SuperSport one in the animations. The BBC Wales sport studio looking nice in a different colour scheme too.

[Rdd]

That’s odd from S4C particularly since these are Supersport’s house style, and not any sort of competition related standard graphics. Indeed SuperSport itself will ditch its own house style when required (URC).

ESPN Latin America…yeah, these are an odd mix of stuff ESPN’s previously done and stuff inspired from a bunch of other places. The scorebar is very NFL (though not ESPN NFL, more like CBS) while other graphics seem inspired by elsewhere. The name captions follow the BT style of mixed case forename and all caps surname, though BT are far from the only broadcaster to ever do things that way. As with the poster previous, I’m wondering if these are actually new or if it’s just it’s been that long since there’s been Argentinian hosted rugby on TV (they’ve departed Super Rugby too).

[RhysJR]

Yes, ads in breaks of play in both codes of rugby (and I'm guessing AFL) is quite common on the Aussie FTA channels - even miss conversions sometimes.

Yep, in AFL they take breaks after every goal.

Quite recently they've started sometimes doing it during football (as in soccer) as well - they normally try to take them in the kinds of places you'd normally feel safe to show a replay, like when there's an injury or a goal kick, but it still seemed very risky!

I think I remember comments that during the Australian Open tennis they took an ad break after every game rather than after every other game during the changeover like British broadcasters would.

I vaguely recall complaints from the 2016 Olympics that NBC had ad breaks at the halfway point of each half of the opening football matches.

In a way you've got to be quite thankful of the lack of interuptions sports get in the UK (even if even the BBC now have trailers in the middle of tennis matches for reason only they could understand).

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That’s odd from S4C particularly since these are Supersport’s house style, and not any sort of competition related standard graphics. Indeed SuperSport itself will ditch its own house style when required (URC).

S4C often adopt the host broadcast graphics for matches, I think they did the same in 2017 when they showed highlights of the Lions in New Zealand for example, and in the Six Nations use the world feed graphics style for studio segments when the BBC and ITV (and others) don't. Not sure they've really had their own default graphics since the then-PRO 12 adopted default graphics. But I agree it's a bit odd especially as it looks like they may have a clean feed to use the same graphics as the English-speaking feed.

S4C subtely underlining how bad the SuperSport directing (and/or the officiating was) with Ken Owens texting Alun Wyn Jones to find out why he received a yellow card as there was a numerous replays when the referee was discussing with the players and then awarding the card, with no replays of the discussion or the infringment (offside) afterwards.

Interestingly a Whisper Cymru production despite the studio and commentary being in BBC Wales' Central Square.

[RhysJR]

Any reason that clips on Sky Sports News use SuperSport and Sky NZ commentary rather than Sky Sports' own commentary?

[bkman1990]

There is a report in The Guardian which says that Extinction Rebellion are planning a sit down protest to take place at the British F1 GP at Silverstone later today. Northamptonshire Police have advised the group to have an alternative protest which is somewhere off-circuit away from the race track.

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2022/j...dApp_Other

Have the Police engaged with broadcasters such as Sky, Channel 4 & the BBC about this unfolding situation for Sunday's race.

It is very dangerous to be going out on a race track when a live motorsport race is in progress especially when it's on a huge motor racing circuit like Silverstone. If we want to reduce the likelihood of having possible fatalities at the race itself. Putting this protest out of harms way away from Silverstone itself is the best solution in my view.

[Brekkie]

There will not be a bloodbath on air. I've little time for XR but the point of protest is to be noticed, so the police telling them to do it off-site isn't one they're going to accept. Similarly broadcasters aren't not going to cover the race or events stopping the race.

The irony here give new "noisy protest" laws is any protest will likely turn down the volume.

[thegeek]

The name captions follow the BT style of mixed case forename and all caps surname, though BT are far from the only broadcaster to ever do things that way. 

I think it's standard in France - and not just in broadcasting, I sometimes see it in email signatures and the like.

[Rdd]

One other thing I wondered, about ESPN Latin America. I’m presuming that in the domestic broadcast, the graphics are in Spanish, and the English version we see is for the benefit of the world feed audience. But if so, why is it still so heavily ESPN branded? A true world feed would surely lack any broadcaster identification. Answers on a postcard…

[Newshound47]

There will not be a bloodbath on air.  I've little time for XR but the point of protest is to be noticed, so the police telling them to do it off-site isn't one they're going to accept.  Similarly broadcasters aren't not going to cover the race or events stopping the race.

The irony here give new "noisy protest" laws is any protest will likely turn down the volume.

Broadcasters do cut away through from pitch invasions at football which include those of a political nature.

[harshy]

That’s odd from S4C particularly since these are Supersport’s house style, and not any sort of competition related standard graphics. Indeed SuperSport itself will ditch its own house style when required (URC).

ESPN Latin America…yeah, these are an odd mix of stuff ESPN’s previously done and stuff inspired from a bunch of other places. The scorebar is very NFL (though not ESPN NFL, more like CBS) while other graphics seem inspired by elsewhere. The name captions follow the BT style of mixed case forename and all caps surname, though BT are far from the only broadcaster to ever do things that way. As with the poster previous, I’m wondering if these are actually new or if it’s just it’s been that long since there’s been Argentinian hosted rugby on TV (they’ve departed Super Rugby too).

That’s a surprise s4c suddenly asking Supersport to borrow their graphics kit specially I’ve always liked super sports graphics though always look great on screen and it’s been around for some years now.

[Rdd]

Their scorebar is ridiculously big, probably the biggest outside of the US and Canada I’ve seen.

[Brekkie]

It's not unusual at all for graphics templates to be supplied rather than graphics nowadays, and an organisation like Supersport works in multiple languages itself - these graphics included references to both the "English commentators" and the "Afrikans commentators", both credited on the graphics Sky used but not heard. I'm guessing there is now a working relationship there with the URC too.

Of course France being France means the Tour de France is one of the few exceptions - they only offer a French version of their graphics.