Comments on: ABC: Another Big Co*k-Up

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 24 Jun 2006 14:19:00 +0000

As bad as the ABC coverage is,it’s not as bad as the fact that the local ABC affiliate in Little Rock isn’t even showing some of the games, opting for paid programming instead. I understand very little Spanish, but watched these games on Univision and enjoyed the excitement in the voices of the commentators. I was dissapointed tohere that Tommy Smyth and Derek Rae are no doing any more games. They are by far the most entertaining and knowledgable announcers ABC/ESPN has.

By: Coach Joel

Coach Joel — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 02:41:00 +0000

I just did a search on the ABC/ESPN commentators with the terms “Beckham hype ESPN commentators” and found your blog. Same color scheme as mine. I created one to blog coaching ice hockey in New Mexico. Anyhow, my reason for grieving on your blog. No Bex isn’t living up to his hype. Who created it? The media. He got the Official “Man of the Match” honors and Balboa kept going on how he hadn’t lived up to his hype. What does he want? Then today, we were provided with a “What does FIFA stand for?” chit-chat. I am from Canada (BTW- Can we ease up on Hargreaves?- we’ll take him back in a heartbeat!) and I am missing my BBC coverage. They are not afraid to carve up the player’s performances but not from a media-hype perspective. I’ll get the Semi-Finals from home. Anyhow, there’s my rant. Thanks! Nice blog, by the way!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 01:20:00 +0000

Assigning Dave O’Brien as a commentator on World Cup matches is an insult to true fans of the game and makes a mockery of the sport. Our club just recently discarded ESPN and associates and gone to Setanta for much more professional coverage.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 04:15:00 +0000

You are 100 % correct. I am furious at ABC/ESPN not allocated enough funds to attract top notch commentators. Why dont we get feeds from europe (John Motson and Clive Tyldesley)? Or why not people like the Tommy Smith duo. Seriously this is embarrassing. I started to be pissed off when Dave Obrien couldnt talk about the iran mexico plays without interjecting a political statement. Fifa should fine espn/abc. Anyways i have been looking for someone to contact in ABC to send a complain letter. Can you help? my email is frezaassa@yahoo.com

By: Mr. P.C.

Mr. P.C. — Mon, 12 Jun 2006 06:10:00 +0000

You're absolutely correct. It was terrible analysis, if you want to even call it that. O'Brien's fawning over Beckham's playing was especially annoying, considering most Brittons think of him as one of the weaker links in the team. He was obviously trying to entertain people who only know David Beckham for his modeling and superstardom, rather than his mediocre football. I thought I read somewhere that O'Brien had actually "studied" quite a bit before taking on the lead announcing duties. Apparently he forgot to include actually listening to real soccer commentators as part of his curriculum.

The sad thing is, usually they pair the lead announcer with someone who seems to know a little about soccer. But Balboa just seemed like a moron to me. He brought up the Hargreaves substitution during the game as a "tactical change" to put a holding midfielder in place, but failed to mention that Hargreaves isn't much of a holding midfielder. It was actually a typically meaningless substitution on England's part, which Balboa could have easily pointed out had he known anything about the player or Sven Goran Eriksson's history of one-dimensional tactics. Later on he actually had to throw in a "bend it like Beckham" reference, chiming in on a replay of the free kick that led to the own goal.

As someone else said, luckily ESPN also threw on some of their UEFA Champions League crew, including Tommy Smyth, who is great.