I guess soccer isn't as far along as I thought. I know it's not an upper-tier sport here; I'm not delusional. But I thought that soccer deserved enough respect to have an important match broadcast uncut, commercial-free, as it is around the globe.
But MSNBC doesn't quite feel that way, and that much was evident during the Brazil-Argentina match this morning.
I got up early, not necessarily to watch the game but I had some writing I had to knock out for an overseas client. After filing the story, I turned on the match. It had already started as I joined around the sixth minute. My girls were bound to wake up soon so I sort of didn't want to get too attached to the game because they wouldn't sit through soccer like I do. But still, it's Brazil-Argentina! You kidding me?!?
But then MSNBC ruined it for me. It was about the 14th minute when they cut to a commercial. Argh. Now, I watched another match on there earlier in the tournament, well, I tried to anyway, and wound up changing it because of the commercials. But I thought for a few minutes that Brazil-Argentina and an Olympic semifinal would supersede all that. I was wrong.
It's excruciating when you get interrupted from watching a soccer game. Sometimes the kids take precedence, sometimes other family members interrupt or the phone or the doorbell or whatever. That's fine. That's stuff you can control. You can sequester yourself somewhere for a truly important game if need be or just warn anyone that they'll get a taste of the dark side if they interrupt you. But when the network that is broadcasting the game is the one interrupting, well, that's beyond excruciating.
When they came back from the break, I was irritated. I had started to get stuff ready for the morning so I wasn't plopped down in front of the TV. When they went to another break, though, I snapped. It's not worth it. It's not worth the early-morning headache. I changed the channel and forgot about watching the game.
Now, I probably could have watched it online I suppose. But even it was available commercial free online it doesn't take away from the fact that MSNBC broke away from commercials and interrupted a semifinal match. Besides, not everyone has the luxury of watching the match online. And - God forbid - what happens if they miss a goal? I'm not sure that didn't happen as they had plenty of chances to not show a goal.
11 comments:
Definitely maddening. They missed a goal in the Nigeria game. It's one thing to do it on a tape-delayed game when you know you're not missing a big play. But it's very poor to do it live.
For me it's the other way around, I don't have the luxury of watching the game on TV. =P In my opinion, watching online is the way to go-- no announcers and no commercials.
None of the other Olympic sports I can think of are continuously running for 45+ minutes without breaks of any kind. To me commercials are a necessary evil; I was just glad NBC was showing it live when they didn't have to.
They did miss the second goal! At least for me. I don't know if it happened for everyone. I've never been so pissed about watching a soccer game in my life. I didn't even care who won. Its like, I just wanted to see two good teams play. If they were going to do this commercials during the game bullcrap then they should have at least done a split screen like the mls used to. Then again those split screen commercials are why I don't watch MLS anymore even though I've been told they don't have those these days.
Eh, it was Argentina-Brazil, who cares?
Oh wait... all of central America does, nevermind. ;-)
- Tone
There was a goal during the second commercial break. I was so furious after the first one that my son and I were still arguing over whether I could also say that I was offended -- which I was, as well as angry.
I know its useless, but I emailed NBC. They've shown commercials in other football matches, but I figured by this stage of the tournament not event they would do that. They replayed the goal which was a beautifully set up, but who knows how much more build up there was. Grrrrr. Still mad.
Get a cable or satellite connection and watch the Olympic Soccer Channel (#755 on DirecTV). They show everything absolutely without commercials, and have shown replays of most US men's and women's games as well. I don't know why they are choosing to give it away and, if too many people watch it this time, it will no doubt be commercial-ridden in the future, but HD football games without ads is nirvana for the moment.
Yeah, thats B.S., Olympic Soccer Channel for the win.
telemundo is where it's at!
can anyone say gooooooooooool!
They've missed more than a few goals. You'd think after a couple of those they would at least tape delay the game by 5 minutes so they can 'pause' it to get the goal on air.
I 'get' that advertisers are paying beau coup dollars for the ads but not nearly as much on CNBC or MSNBC. They chould have found a middle ground like the ads that ring the picture or something.
It's just bush league crap.
They've missed more than a few goals. You'd think after a couple of those they would at least tape delay the game by 5 minutes so they can 'pause' it to get the goal on air.
I 'get' that advertisers are paying beau coup dollars for the ads but not nearly as much on CNBC or MSNBC. They chould have found a middle ground like the ads that ring the picture or something.
It's just bush league crap.
There were no commercials on the two live USA games I watched on UniversalHD. There was of course Marcelo Balboa, but that's a different story.
I don't remember if the other matches I watched on UniversalHD or USAHD had commercials or not because I wasn't paying too close attention to them.
Post a Comment