Blazers commentators will not travel with team

nattysez

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I'm guessing there are things away from the ball, and thus away from the camera, that they can see by being there. Fans will be able to tell the difference initially, but over time it will seem like the norm
 

yeahlunchbox

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I think we'd discussed this possibility before, and now it's here -- the Blazers' TV and radio commentators won't travel with the team this season. I wonder how many other teams might do this. I'm also curious to what extent it will impact the quality of the broadcasts. I think this is how @Conigliaro's Potential calls all his games, so I think it's viable.

View: https://twitter.com/RipCityRadio620/status/1560146823976611840?t=LOC9MxMblWMd-L6WYp66xg&s=19
Based on NESN broadcasts of Bruins games last year, it's viable in the sense that the commentators can tell you exactly what you're seeing on the screen, but it's not viable in the sense of describing what is happening in the arena. Here's hoping a fire alarm doesn't go off in the studio while the game is taking place.
 
I think we'd discussed this possibility before, and now it's here -- the Blazers' TV and radio commentators won't travel with the team this season. I wonder how many other teams might do this. I'm also curious to what extent it will impact the quality of the broadcasts. I think this is how @Conigliaro's Potential calls all his games, so I think it's viable.

View: https://twitter.com/RipCityRadio620/status/1560146823976611840?t=LOC9MxMblWMd-L6WYp66xg&s=19
@Conigliaro's Potential
has some experience with this sort of thing.
Yes, I have loads of experience with this sort of thing - about 95% of my commentary work is remote - and yes, it's absolutely viable. And it's not like this is the first time a major North American sports team has done this: e.g., I worked with Tom Valcke on the 2018 Asian Games gold medal baseball game - onsite in Jakarta, as it happens - and Tom had been the color guy for the Montreal Expos in their final year in Montreal, and they had called all of their away games that season out of a studio in Montreal to save money. Loads of ESPN college basketball games are called "off-tube" (as we call it). And so on. (Heck, golf tournaments and Formula 1 races by their very nature are off-tube broadcasts even when you're onsite, insofar as each commentator can only be at one place at one time and watch the majority of the event on their monitors anyway.)

If you're quick-witted and you know what you're doing and what to look for, there's no reason that the quality of your commentary work should noticeably suffer if you're off-tube. The major advantage for me in working off-tube is that I can stick rosters and background research sheets (etc.) on the bottom of my monitor, and position my laptop right next to my screen so all of the live stats are just a glance away; when I'm calling a game in person, it's tougher to find a place to put everything, especially in cramped setups where there are other people sitting close to you. The biggest minus is of course that you can only see what's on your screen - I've never heard of an off-tube setup with an extra monitor showing camera angles that aren't part of your main feed - and when the main feed stops working for whatever reason (e.g., dodgy camera work or direction), you're kinda screwed. And if you're not in the stadium/arena, of course you don't get a sense of what's happening around you and how much noise the fans are making as you're commentating - and you also can't chat with players or coaches or other members of the media (etc.) before the game to get anecdotes and other stuff to bring to the broadcast. These are all bad things...but if you're willing to work hard enough, you can absolutely overcome them. The question is whether or not commentators who have spent their entire lives working at games in person will be able to adapt to their new working environment and put the necessary time in to overcome them.
 

jayhoz

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Yes, I have loads of experience with this sort of thing - about 95% of my commentary work is remote - and yes, it's absolutely viable. And it's not like this is the first time a major North American sports team has done this: e.g., I worked with Tom Valcke on the 2018 Asian Games gold medal baseball game - onsite in Jakarta, as it happens - and Tom had been the color guy for the Montreal Expos in their final year in Montreal, and they had called all of their away games that season out of a studio in Montreal to save money. Loads of ESPN college basketball games are called "off-tube" (as we call it). And so on. (Heck, golf tournaments and Formula 1 races by their very nature are off-tube broadcasts even when you're onsite, insofar as each commentator can only be at one place at one time and watch the majority of the event on their monitors anyway.)

If you're quick-witted and you know what you're doing and what to look for, there's no reason that the quality of your commentary work should noticeably suffer if you're off-tube. The major advantage for me in working off-tube is that I can stick rosters and background research sheets (etc.) on the bottom of my monitor, and position my laptop right next to my screen so all of the live stats are just a glance away; when I'm calling a game in person, it's tougher to find a place to put everything, especially in cramped setups where there are other people sitting close to you. The biggest minus is of course that you can only see what's on your screen - I've never heard of an off-tube setup with an extra monitor showing camera angles that aren't part of your main feed - and when the main feed stops working for whatever reason (e.g., dodgy camera work or direction), you're kinda screwed. And if you're not in the stadium/arena, of course you don't get a sense of what's happening around you and how much noise the fans are making as you're commentating - and you also can't chat with players or coaches or other members of the media (etc.) before the game to get anecdotes and other stuff to bring to the broadcast. These are all bad things...but if you're willing to work hard enough, you can absolutely overcome them. The question is whether or not commentators who have spent their entire lives working at games in person will be able to adapt to their new working environment and put the necessary time in to overcome them.
I'm curious about the mechanics of this. Are you getting a real-time feed which then goes out on a delay with your commentary?
 
I'm curious about the mechanics of this. Are you getting a real-time feed which then goes out on a delay with your commentary?
I get the feed as quickly as the production team can get it to me, and then it goes back out with my commentary as fast as it can be uplinked. When I'm working in a proper studio, the delays are usually no more than a few seconds; before the start of the broadcast, I'll usually have a test pattern (or occasionally the feed from a previous game or event) with a clock on it, and I'll count the seconds in time with the clock so the technician on the other end of the line can sync everything up if required. Increasingly, I do a lot of commentary from home, with the signal just coming to me via my broadband connection; I don't know how long those delays - except to say they're definitely longer - are or how everything gets synced up, but when I hear the playback everything is perfectly in line, so there are ways of sorting that out as well.

(FWIW, I've talked about a lot of these issues in my "Diary of a commentator" thread here in the Media forum, in case you weren't aware of that thread's existence.)
 

4 6 3 DP

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Thank you for sharing this insight. This is the stuff that makes this board so great.
 

Saints Rest

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Is the impetus for doing this to save money? Or to make it easier on commentators?

If the latter, I wonder if teams might have more interesting people interested in taking that job. I seem to recall that Eck was hesitant for a long time to do games because of the travel involved, to say nothing of John Madden's fear of flying. If you could sleep in your own bed every night and be with your family during the days, it might make more recently retired players more interested in taking the job.
 

RedOctober3829

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Paul O'Neill is still calling Yankee games at his Ohio home this year off of a monitor because he is not allowed in the booth due to his vaccination status. You can't really tell that he's not there other than a few instances. I do think decisions to keep broadcast teams off the road are ridiculous though. There's a lot of insight broadcasters can get from being on-site.
 

jtn46

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Delay depends on the technology used, but is pretty insignificant to the home viewer because signal flow will always add some, some is added at the carrier, and for anything with a censor there is a delay added for that. IOW fans watching on TV were never reacting truly ”live” compared to what fans at the venue were seeing so adding in a step for commentary either from home (but keep in mind we would not “pass” the signal through anyone’s home studio, that would add a very volatile point of failure, we are integrating their audio at some production point) or at a production point is not really detrimental to the broadcast and is short. I‘m guessing for the Blazers they will be at a studio in Portland, not at home.

These workflows were necessary when traveling sports came back post-covid because of interstate regulations and for the most part are great because yeah, they cost less and allow for more permanent workflows. I assume it’s less of a “the Blazers are cheap” thing and more a way to consider that it isn’t the best use of time or money to keep sending commentators on road trips when the money could be spent to improve the product in another way. Basketball is tricky because they are right there but for sports like baseball and football with booths the commentators are practically watching the games on monitors already (of note Costas and Smoltz have done MLB Network commentary for their games from Secaucus, NJ, they don’t travel to venues). For the business anywhere we can cut costs and create better workflows creates an opportunity to broadcast more events, A-list stuff like the NFL will still get all the bells and whistles but we can broadcast live say, high school sports now for a very low cost when years ago that was too expensive to be feasible. Keep in mind the transition to streaming has been expensive for legacy broadcasters and a future transition to say, 4K HDR will be really expensive too, so choices like this can advance the timeline for that.

Pre-covid one innovation that was already gaining steam was remote productions, or REMIs, where video and audio can be sent sent via IP to a production facility (ESPN has one in Charlotte for example) instead of a production truck with a satellite uplink so on a technical level doing commentary from a production facility instead of from the venue is trivial for a REMI.
 

ifmanis5

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If you ever watched international soccer leagues on ESPN in the 90's (not World Cup) it was all remote. Just two guys in a tiny windowless audio-proof booth staring at a small screen and screaming into a mic. The tech is much better due to Covid and I don't think people will notice a difference in the broadcast. But the announcers themselves having less access to players and local media will be less informed and have less inside stories and info to share.
 

smokin joe wood

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It affects different sports differently. I produce a fair amount of broadcasts from my office now and the sport and announcers are huge wildcards in how well it all comes across. Football is an incredibly difficult sport to call off a monitor. Most of the networks have given up even trying to do it that way. Basketball is one of the simpler sports to call from home. Most games and venues don't have A+ atmospheres and you can normally see most of the players on the court from the main camera angle.
There is no doubt some nuance lost on the production side when you're not at the venue. It's more 'stale' in a few ways. It's also where the business is headed so you either embrace it and try to get better or get left behind.
 

smokin joe wood

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For reference - this is what my setup is at my company's office for a remote game. Announcers calling the game from their homes. So only cameras and techs are on site.

54419
 

mauidano

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Paul O'Neill is still calling Yankee games at his Ohio home this year off of a monitor because he is not allowed in the booth due to his vaccination status. You can't really tell that he's not there other than a few instances. I do think decisions to keep broadcast teams off the road are ridiculous though. There's a lot of insight broadcasters can get from being on-site.
Is it Ohio or Florida? He talks about Florida and the beach a lot. I think the MFY's are retiring his number this weekend. Wonder if he'll "show up" via the giant outfield screen or actually be there in person?

<sarcasm>
 
If you ever watched international soccer leagues on ESPN in the 90's (not World Cup) it was all remote. Just two guys in a tiny windowless audio-proof booth staring at a small screen and screaming into a mic.
I was literally one of those guys! I made my professional broadcasting debut at ESPN International all the way back in 1997, calling a Brazilian league match between Sao Paulo and Atletico Paranaense - Mike Hill was the play-by-play guy, and for some reason passing all understanding, I did color. (I called that and three Mexican second division matches - all involving Pachuca - and that was that. Didn't get back behind a professional mic until 2014...very strange.)
 

ifmanis5

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I was literally one of those guys! I made my professional broadcasting debut at ESPN International all the way back in 1997, calling a Brazilian league match between Sao Paulo and Atletico Paranaense - Mike Hill was the play-by-play guy, and for some reason passing all understanding, I did color. (I called that and three Mexican second division matches - all involving Pachuca - and that was that. Didn't get back behind a professional mic until 2014...very strange.)
Haha, small world. I'm sure I walked by that booth weekend mornings at least dozens of times.
 
It affects different sports differently. I produce a fair amount of broadcasts from my office now and the sport and announcers are huge wildcards in how well it all comes across. Football is an incredibly difficult sport to call off a monitor. Most of the networks have given up even trying to do it that way. Basketball is one of the simpler sports to call from home. Most games and venues don't have A+ atmospheres and you can normally see most of the players on the court from the main camera angle.
I've done a lot of football over the past two summers, and I think it's actually relatively easy to call off of a monitor - certainly relative to baseball, where you have to anticipate and sometimes guess whether a fly ball will be caught or be a home run or land in the field of play (to say nothing of guessing whether runners are going or staying at each base.) But you're certainly right about basketball; that's definitely one of the easier sports to call remotely. Tennis is probably the easiest, if I had to pick among the ones I've called, not least because there's no player identification required.
 
Haha, small world. I'm sure I walked by that booth weekend mornings at least dozens of times.
FWIW, when I was at Harvard I used to watch Premier League games at the Plough and Stars pub, and often enough I was sitting next to Seamus Malin - I'm pretty sure he helped me get my chance at ESPN, not that I remember any of the details. (To be fair, I've tried to repress most of them.)
 

smokin joe wood

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Is there a high home camera that isn't in the picture? I'd imagine that would be really important for seeing defensive shifts and following the ball of the bat.
Yup. There's a wide stationary camera that shows the infield alignment and runners on base.
 

smokin joe wood

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I've done a lot of football over the past two summers, and I think it's actually relatively easy to call off of a monitor - certainly relative to baseball, where you have to anticipate and sometimes guess whether a fly ball will be caught or be a home run or land in the field of play (to say nothing of guessing whether runners are going or staying at each base.) But you're certainly right about basketball; that's definitely one of the easier sports to call remotely. Tennis is probably the easiest, if I had to pick among the ones I've called, not least because there's no player identification required.
American football is a challenge remotely. Especially for the analysts. PxP watch the ball - that's where most of the cameras go. Football analysts don't watch the ball. That's the hard part. It's also very challenging to be on the same page during replay sequences. In my experience, the producer has to dictate more in a replay sequence when the announcers are not on site. So, in my position, you're choosing the camera angles for a replay, communicating the preroll to the tape operators, telling the director which tape channel to go to AND, in shorthand, telling the analyst what is coming. On top of all that - you may be running the telestrator. It's a beautiful, chaotic sequence that you repeat 50+ times in a football game.
 

RedOctober3829

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Is it Ohio or Florida? He talks about Florida and the beach a lot. I think the MFY's are retiring his number this weekend. Wonder if he'll "show up" via the giant outfield screen or actually be there in person?

<sarcasm>
I think they are allowing him to be on the field, but no uniform personnel are allowed to be on the field at the same time. He can't go into the press box or into the clubhouse either. It's a screwed up situation that only can be blamed on O'Neill's unwillingness to get the vaccine. That is the same reason why there wasn't an actual Old Timers Day game. There was enough former players who are unvaccinated that they just did away with the game this year.
 
Yup. There's a wide stationary camera that shows the infield alignment and runners on base.
What I wouldn't give to have this when I've commentated on baseball (and indeed softball)! I didn't have anything like this at the IBC during the Olympics in Tokyo, for example; I know I shouldn't really guess in situations like this, but I couldn't really help myself at times. Particularly insofar as watching and listening to thousands and thousands of baseball broadcasts has given me a very firm sense of when I should be referencing the positions of the baserunners.
American football is a challenge remotely. Especially for the analysts. PxP watch the ball - that's where most of the cameras go. Football analysts don't watch the ball. That's the hard part. It's also very challenging to be on the same page during replay sequences. In my experience, the producer has to dictate more in a replay sequence when the announcers are not on site. So, in my position, you're choosing the camera angles for a replay, communicating the preroll to the tape operators, telling the director which tape channel to go to AND, in shorthand, telling the analyst what is coming. On top of all that - you may be running the telestrator. It's a beautiful, chaotic sequence that you repeat 50+ times in a football game.
This is a very good point: I've only ever called (American) football games as a solo commentator. Which is quite a daunting prospect in its own way, particularly when you have to act as your own spotter and statistician as well as an occasional analyst, but it's absolutely true that I'm only really focused on where the ball is, and I barely have the time or inclination to worry about too much that isn't on my screen already. Remotely doing a proper two-commentator setup which gives an analyst what he needs to provide proper analysis must be inordinately difficult, and requires a level of production well beyond most of what I myself have experienced. (The most elaborate production I've been involved with was actually the off-camera NFL studio hosting gig I did for DAZN Canada for a couple of seasons, but that was again a solo operation for me from the commentary perspective, and the biggest challenger there was coordinating a sort of SportsCenter-meets-RedZone nearly live highlight reel during halftime and at the ends of games.)
 

mauidano

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I think they are allowing him to be on the field, but no uniform personnel are allowed to be on the field at the same time. He can't go into the press box or into the clubhouse either. It's a screwed up situation that only can be blamed on O'Neill's unwillingness to get the vaccine. That is the same reason why there wasn't an actual Old Timers Day game. There was enough former players who are unvaccinated that they just did away with the game this year.
Wow! Didn’t know all of that. Why even bother with a “Day”? Pretty damn selfish of him to even run with this and embarrassing for all concerned.
 

Rod Becks Mullet

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This is a very good point: I've only ever called (American) football games as a solo commentator. Which is quite a daunting prospect in its own way, particularly when you have to act as your own spotter and statistician as well as an occasional analyst, but it's absolutely true that I'm only really focused on where the ball is, and I barely have the time or inclination to worry about too much that isn't on my screen already. Remotely doing a proper two-commentator setup which gives an analyst what he needs to provide proper analysis must be inordinately difficult, and requires a level of production well beyond most of what I myself have experienced. (The most elaborate production I've been involved with was actually the off-camera NFL studio hosting gig I did for DAZN Canada for a couple of seasons, but that was again a solo operation for me from the commentary perspective, and the biggest challenger there was coordinating a sort of SportsCenter-meets-RedZone nearly live highlight reel during halftime and at the ends of games.)
My company still sent announcers on site for football once games started post pandemic, with production teams back at a REMI studio because of the ability to see the entire field. Absolute headache dealing with setups and zoom meetings. The communication needed to be PERFECT since there was a slight delay throwing off timing.

As for this situation with the Blazers there are three big issues: 1) they won't see off the ball action on the floor and on the bench. Some analysts will keep one eye and read the coaches from time to time, nevermind what is happening on the floor away from them. 2) Communication from the arena needs to be perfect. Refs could go to the table and clear up situations. Now it becomes a game of telephone: ref to the Time Out Coordinator to the producer to the announcer.

Biggest is #3: they build up trust with the players and coaches while being with them full time. No travel cuts into the relationship they have with the team. Pregame meetings are cut. Inside info, how players are feeling, what coaches might change, all gets lost.
 

jon abbey

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Wow! Didn’t know all of that. Why even bother with a “Day”? Pretty damn selfish of him to even run with this and embarrassing for all concerned.
I am not paying such close attention to this, but I believe they announced it would happen before they realized he wasn’t vaccinated, and they didn’t want to backtrack.
 

CFB_Rules

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American football is a challenge remotely. Especially for the analysts. PxP watch the ball - that's where most of the cameras go. Football analysts don't watch the ball. That's the hard part. It's also very challenging to be on the same page during replay sequences. In my experience, the producer has to dictate more in a replay sequence when the announcers are not on site. So, in my position, you're choosing the camera angles for a replay, communicating the preroll to the tape operators, telling the director which tape channel to go to AND, in shorthand, telling the analyst what is coming. On top of all that - you may be running the telestrator. It's a beautiful, chaotic sequence that you repeat 50+ times in a football game.
I don't know what level of football you are producing, but for NCAA the producers also have the job of working with the instant replay officials. So add that as another dimension, for plays under review they need to find the right shot and angle for instant replay to determine what happened.

When you have a really shitty producer they'll be showing angles on TV that the replay official never got to see. The color commentator will be second-guessing the replay decision based on an angle that his producer never sent to the booth.
 

smokin joe wood

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I don't know what level of football you are producing, but for NCAA the producers also have the job of working with the instant replay officials. So add that as another dimension, for plays under review they need to find the right shot and angle for instant replay to determine what happened.

When you have a really shitty producer they'll be showing angles on TV that the replay official never got to see. The color commentator will be second-guessing the replay decision based on an angle that his producer never sent to the booth.
Yeah. I do a lot of college football. Thankfully, this workflow is slowly changing. Conferences (at least the larger ones) are taking the responsibility of replay away from the TV production team. The NFL does the same. The system they use is being implemented in other sports and it's beautiful.
 

bsj

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Paul O'Neill is still calling Yankee games at his Ohio home this year off of a monitor because he is not allowed in the booth due to his vaccination status. You can't really tell that he's not there other than a few instances. I do think decisions to keep broadcast teams off the road are ridiculous though. There's a lot of insight broadcasters can get from being on-site.
When Michael Kay looks to the right when they are in a 2 shot, when you know he isn't there, it looks ridiculous.
 

Milktoast

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John Meterparel once broadcast a New England Revolution game, watching from his bedroom TV. Dennis & Callahan used to talk about it on their old show.