Oh boy!! We are only 4 minutes into F1 coverage on ABC and already I am missing Speedvision. The ABC cast sucks and should stick to IRL and IROC. Gee only thing missing here would be to have Ned Jarret and Benny Parsons join the crew, and hell lets thrown in Paul Page and bring Bobby Unser back from retirement.

I guess short of hiding in some Afgahn cave (not a good place to be right now) or travelling to the space station, it would be next to impossible to wait until the October 7th Speedvision airing and try not find out who won.

They said that Bernie and Tony G. wanted the race on ABC because non-F1 viewers might accidentally come accross the race and watch it. Yeah right! And I guess a few of us F1 non-NASCAR fans might accidentally watch the NASCAR race while we flip through the channels. Where do they get these marketing people from.

Bernie has lost his mind!

Careful folks, don't "accidentally" switch over to ESPN2 this afternoon you might get hooked on the womens pro bowling tour!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, swell looks like they recruited Eddie Cheever for the telecast. Gee I think the last time he was in an F1 car was in the mid-80's, bet he's really up to date on F1 technology. Maybe he can tell us what it's like to drive a Minardi or a Prost since he is well versed in driving crappy backmarkers and uncompetitive F1 cars.


Regards,

Jon C.

I don't have SpeedVision unfortunately, although if I did, I would've looked there first. And having watched yesterday's practice and qualifying SV's coverage was top notch. But, I think it is a valid point: would they have gained additional viewers (like me) if it was only on SpeedVision? I highly doubt it, as SpeedVision and it's viewers are a niche market, I believe...

(and of course after I trade for Manning-5tds last week and Harrison, giving up Culpepper and Moss, the Colts get waxed by the Pats, argh!) :P

The commentators had no background at all and talked too much.

On the other hand, the graphic overlays were great and the high number of in car cams was great.

I'd like to see them bone up a little for the race next time.

All in all though, I think I'd prefer Speedvision coverage with a higher budget over ABC with a little practice.

...their broadcasting team and commentary is the worst of any sport I see on network television today. 2/3rds of their "commentary" was those guys just talking back and forth to each other about race cars. As for the race, well I'd call it another BORING Formula One race, although until Barrichello blew his engine at the end, the last dozen laps had the potential for an unfolding drama. F1 has got to get some more competition at the top, some places where guys can pass each other, and cars that can finish (and start) races if it's going to have any chance of being broadcast in the U.S.

***I also posted this in the off-topic forum***

Jason 90210 called a Williams a McLaren, Jenkins (who should know better) kept mis-pronouncing Barrichello's name and Sauber (sober) and at one point (don't remember if it was Cheever or Jenkins) called one of the cars "um, the other car in front". We all knew what it was. Some of the things Cheever said were outright wrong, which might explain his lack of success in F1.... idiot.

Horrible, horrible, just f*cking horrible and now these a$$holes have it for next year: Little Jason announced it. I guess Tony and Bernie got their way and I'm sure Bernie just did it for the money.

Can't wait to see SV's coverage next week...

of the F1 rights almost as aggressively as they push NASCRAP. It would do at least better than hoping to get the random person surfing for an NFL/MLB/NBA game.

Another problem with ABC is consistency. Years ago, before SV, ABC had the rights to F1 and would pre-empt the race for a golf match or just about any big franchise sport. At this point, the already non-live coverage would be relegated to ESPN, unless of course they had a big franchise sport, in which case it would now get dumped to ESPN2... at 12 midnight.

The local ABC station here in LA (KABC7) would pre-empt a nationwide telecast of CART races to show local community discussion programs, then show the race as a tape 3 hours or sometimes 11 hours later, and at least twice in three years, didn't show the race at all. Ever.

So, I'm not looking forward to ABCs crap for next year, especially since the SV crew was doing such an awesome job, considering.

This whole thing may have more to do with Bernie not liking CART. Tony George (a jerk) also doesn't like CART, duh, he's the idiot that split american open-wheeled racing in two with his lame IRL series. Apparently, Tony George was instrumental in getting Bernie to sign with ABC, which lost or gave up CART to Speedvision.

...for Bob Jenkins to say something that indicated that he had the slightest clue about what he was watching. What a bunch of ill-informed dimwits. Right from the start, something like "...140,000 horsepower on the grid...". I thought I misheard it, but the person next to me said "yup, that's what he said". Hmmmm...do the math, boys...

Cheever needs a personality transplant, and it's a good thing Jason Priestly can act, as his talents at motorsport commentary and his attempts at race car driving would force him to find a second job at 7-11 to earn rent money.

After 15 minutes I couldn't take it anymore and just turned the sound down.

If I recall correctly, the video feed (& graphics) are the official F1 feed - ABC (nor Speedvision) has no control over them. Everyone gets the same thing - only the announcers are under their control.

The graphics are different on the world feed, plus you get the incar cams with the telemetry.

Interestingly, Speedvision had claimed that ABC was getting their normal feed and that the Speedvision re-broadcast would have the 'world' feed with the telemetry stuff. Unless there is more (long time since I watched F1 in England), I guess they were wrong.

At least they had less commercial breaks than speedvision I guess. But the commentary was very sucky. I liked the bit at the first commercial break where they said "67 of 76 laps complete!". Er, not.

Which is actually quite an achievement for on-air types these days. OK....we'll all agree that he can't act, he can't do race commentary, he is a menace when he races.....WTF can he do, and why is he doing it on my TV set from Indy ???

You should see them comment on a BIKE RACE... there's where you'll learn how absolutely badly they can chunk something up. Heh they did a one week summary of the first week of the Tour de France and they spent the first 8 minutes talking about some historic battle... About as relevant as kiddie porn to the subject IMO.

Sure, the commentators were on the "rough" side, but really all commentators do anyway is babble incessantly. Coverage with NO commentators would probably be optimal.

The feed was just fine (and it has in-camera footage which Speedvision kept saying it wouldn't have!) and while the commentators weren't as good as the SV ones, IMO that's a small part of the equation.

-B

for example the remote cam under the bridge at Start / Finish would pan, following the cars and show them upside down as they were going away.

a racing coverage (or any coverage) First!! 8-|

Audi On!

The champagne celebration was great though!!

He talked to the 'guys' and determined they were on a one stop strategy. (At the halfway point in the race when they had yet to stop. It takes real insight to figure that out.)
He had some very keen observations about Ralf Schumacher and his McLaren. (Bet you didn't even notice the team change that Ralf made, but nothing gets by Jason).

I vaguely remember something about an IMSA ride a while back. I've always assumed it was a "rent-a-ride" situation. Someone had a racecar at a DE event at Laguna earlier in the year (a Mustang, I think) that had his name on the roof by the driver's door.

Anyone got the real scoop?

As for the announcing, in spite of my better judgement, I've tuned into a few IRL races this year (primarily because I know someone who is a race engineer/tech director for one of the teams), so I'd perfected the timely use of the "commercial skip" button on the UltimateTV box a long time ago!!

This was a couple years ago, but he's had rides in races up to the Toyota Lights series I think. I don't know what his highest level semi-permanent gig was though. Most of his rides have been one-time promotional kind of things.

I don't know what his skill level is, but I'd bet is is far better than most amateurs but lower than most pro racers.