Post by spindle on Sept 3, 2006 21:48:07 GMT -5
Took this off an ESPN article and couldn't agree more. This is the main reason I have a hard time watching Major League Soccer. At least Madden is entertaining!! Seriously if you like sports watch and EPL game with the great Scottisch announcers. It makes all sports anouncers in the US seem boring.
12. "Fan Zone" on FSC
So I've been slowly getting into the English soccer thing, although I might have picked a lemon -- a struggling Spurs team that just got shut out by an Everton team that played a man down for most of the game. Er, match. (Note: One thing I've enjoyed about soccer is that the British announcers will absolutely kill a team that's underperforming, and they'll do it in the most condescending, disgusted way possible. All the announcers sound like the guy who feuded with Rob Lowe in "Oxford Blues." It's pretty funny. These guys were killing the Spurs on Saturday. Er, Hotspurs.) Now I'm suffering from buyer's envy and wishing that I picked Man City, who have the coolest uniforms and stunned Arsenal last weekend with the winning goal coming off an iffy penalty-kick call. Soccer really needs to figure that out. Imagine watching the Mavs-Heat in the NBA Finals if Miami won a game because one of the fouls on Dwyane Wade was worth 35 free throws. That would have been even more ridiculous than what actually ended up happening.
Anyway, there's this show on Fox's all-soccer channel called "Fan Zone," where two rowdy British fans announce one of the games and openly cheer for their teams. It's kind of like watching a White Sox telecast, only if Hawk Harrelson had a British accent and sounded drunk. But it's spectacular. Now I'm wondering why we don't do this in the United States. For instance, let's say the Yankees and Red Sox were playing on ESPN2 with the normal announcers, and we were also showing the game on ESPN6 with me and my buddy JackO (a huge Yankee fan) announcing, and both of us were openly drinking during the game, screaming for our teams and busting each other. Which telecast would you watch? Yeah, I thought so. Let's make this happen.
(One more note on this: Why do British people have the best television ideas? We're always ripping them off about four years after they came up with a great idea. With all the webcasts out there, as well as league-owned networks like NBA TV and the NFL Network, why couldn't we have the option of listening to multiple announcers for a game? What's the obstacle here? And couldn't you have a contest to find the announcers? For God's sake, a kajillion people turn up for the "American Idol" tryouts ... you don't think tens of thousands of sports nuts would kill themselves for the chance to announce pro games? I can't believe this hasn't happened yet.)
12. "Fan Zone" on FSC
So I've been slowly getting into the English soccer thing, although I might have picked a lemon -- a struggling Spurs team that just got shut out by an Everton team that played a man down for most of the game. Er, match. (Note: One thing I've enjoyed about soccer is that the British announcers will absolutely kill a team that's underperforming, and they'll do it in the most condescending, disgusted way possible. All the announcers sound like the guy who feuded with Rob Lowe in "Oxford Blues." It's pretty funny. These guys were killing the Spurs on Saturday. Er, Hotspurs.) Now I'm suffering from buyer's envy and wishing that I picked Man City, who have the coolest uniforms and stunned Arsenal last weekend with the winning goal coming off an iffy penalty-kick call. Soccer really needs to figure that out. Imagine watching the Mavs-Heat in the NBA Finals if Miami won a game because one of the fouls on Dwyane Wade was worth 35 free throws. That would have been even more ridiculous than what actually ended up happening.
Anyway, there's this show on Fox's all-soccer channel called "Fan Zone," where two rowdy British fans announce one of the games and openly cheer for their teams. It's kind of like watching a White Sox telecast, only if Hawk Harrelson had a British accent and sounded drunk. But it's spectacular. Now I'm wondering why we don't do this in the United States. For instance, let's say the Yankees and Red Sox were playing on ESPN2 with the normal announcers, and we were also showing the game on ESPN6 with me and my buddy JackO (a huge Yankee fan) announcing, and both of us were openly drinking during the game, screaming for our teams and busting each other. Which telecast would you watch? Yeah, I thought so. Let's make this happen.
(One more note on this: Why do British people have the best television ideas? We're always ripping them off about four years after they came up with a great idea. With all the webcasts out there, as well as league-owned networks like NBA TV and the NFL Network, why couldn't we have the option of listening to multiple announcers for a game? What's the obstacle here? And couldn't you have a contest to find the announcers? For God's sake, a kajillion people turn up for the "American Idol" tryouts ... you don't think tens of thousands of sports nuts would kill themselves for the chance to announce pro games? I can't believe this hasn't happened yet.)