What’s up with the announcers from last night?

#1
T

Teezy

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#1
Why did it feel like it was the Alabama championship? Im usually not worried about things like this but I was infuriated last night by those announcers. I don’t understand. Is this payback for last week? Does ESPN make more money talking about Alabama? Do they make more money hating Tennessee? I can’t find a logical explanation for this in my head. We’d make a good play and they would segway into Alabama mistakes, a random Alabama players history or how they’ve played this season.. Like what? It never even felt like the announcers were surprised Tennessee was actually hanging into the 4th? Something we’ve rarely done lately.
 
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#8
#8
This has been part of broadcast football for a while now. The favored team gets more in-depth game prep (meaning, the announcers spend more time looking up and preparing cheat sheet notes on the favored team players, talk in more depth with that coaching staff, gather more human interest angles, etc.), and consequently gets more talk during the game.

The more lopsided the perceived balance between the teams, the more lopsided the prep and coverage will be.

Is it right? No. In the old days, announcers seemed to be more careful to give equal attention to both teams. That kind of went away with objective journalism in general, like 20-30 years ago.

These days the media are not driven by what's right, but by what sells. And as much as folks love an underdog, the neutral viewers want to hear all about Goliath while they're watching.

So if the TV audience is 20% Vols fans, 20% Bama fans, and 60% relatively neutral, that's 80% who might be cheering for the upset, but 80% in the other direction wanting to know more about the favored team.

And so that's what today's journalists follow.

Sucks when you're the underdog. So let's get to where we're the favorite.

Go Vols!


p.s. I'm not sure McElroy being McElroy was too much a part of that. He's shown an ability to provide objective assessment of teams playing Bama before. Remember, we had this same disfavored coverage in the Florida game, as well. And even in the Ole Miss game (part of that, though, is the media just loves to talk about Kiffin).

p.p.s. I'm all for play-by-play announcers not necessarily being former players. In fact, they almost never are. But the little fella who announced last night's game is about as opposite from an athlete as you could find. Tiny (he was talking to McElroy's shoulder all night long), scrawny, thick glasses, and a very Weird Science kind of vibe. But great voice. Maybe he was meant for radio.
 
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#9
#9
We have to start winning big games. McElroy is a homer and the Jimmy Vaulmer looking dude from South Park is just a talking head for a network that loves to hate us.
 
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#11
#11
It's been happening for decades. Even when we were winning 10-12 games a year, Tennessee always gets the short end of the commentary. When John Ward was on our call I'd just mute the TV and listen to him. But I have a hard time listening to Kesling. Hopefully the next radio guy is better and I can quit listening to the TV commentary again.
 
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#14
#14
I'm not going to try to tell anyone how they should feel about announcers. I also don't think it's entirely fair to compare announcers to years ago.

Years ago we got few games each week and they were expected to be close so they prepared for that.

Today all games are on TV, even conference games with 25+ point spreads. Sometimes they are tighter than expected and sometimes worse.
 
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#17
#17
We will never have another J Ward, but there is nothing wrong with Bob. He loves UT as much as anyone on this board.
 
#18
#18
tessitore ususally works with mcelroy, and it's sickening.

mcelroy is out and out homer on has hard time giving vols credit during heat of game Heis much better when he is analyzing games in the studio. in fact, id rather listen to him than most of their analysts.

last night, he seem to be trying to overshadow geeky guy and bothered me least in the final minutes of the game
 
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#19
#19
VFL-82-JP said:
This has been part of broadcast football for a while now. The favored team gets more in-depth game prep (meaning, the announcers spend more time looking up and preparing cheat sheet notes on the favored team players, talk in more depth with that coaching staff, gather more human interest angles, etc.), and consequently gets more talk during the game.

The more lopsided the perceived balance between the teams, the more lopsided the prep and coverage will be.

Is it right? No. In the old days, announcers seemed to be more careful to give equal attention to both teams. That kind of went away with objective journalism in general, like 20-30 years ago.

These days the media are not driven by what's right, but by what sells. And as much as folks love an underdog, the neutral viewers want to hear all about Goliath while they're watching.

So if the TV audience is 20% Vols fans, 20% Bama fans, and 60% relatively neutral, that's 80% who might be cheering for the upset, but 80% in the other direction wanting to know more about the favored team.

And so that's what today's journalists follow.

Sucks when you're the underdog. So let's get to where we're the favorite.

Go Vols!


p.s. I'm not sure McElroy being McElroy was too much a part of that. He's shown an ability to provide objective assessment of teams playing Bama before. Remember, we had this same disfavored coverage in the Florida game, as well. And even in the Ole Miss game (part of that, though, is the media just loves to talk about Kiffin).

p.p.s. I'm all for play-by-play announcers not necessarily being former players. In fact, they almost never are. But the little fella who announced last night's game is about as opposite from an athlete as you could find. Tiny (he was talking to McElroy's shoulder all night long), scrawny, thick glasses, and a very Weird Science kind of vibe. But great voice. Maybe he was meant for radio.
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Okay this makes me feel a little bit better about it. I agree and it does make sense in terms of covering games and profiting the most. I’d probably want to hear more about Oklahoma sucking than Kansas doing well so I get it.
 
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#20
#20
Teezy said:
Why did it feel like it was the Alabama championship? Im usually not worried about things like this but I was infuriated last night by those announcers. I don’t understand. Is this payback for last week? Does ESPN make more money talking about Alabama? Do they make more money hating Tennessee? I can’t find a logical explanation for this in my head. We’d make a good play and they would segway into Alabama mistakes, a random Alabama players history or how they’ve played this season.. Like what? It never even felt like the announcers were surprised Tennessee was actually hanging into the 4th? Something we’ve rarely done lately.
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The ole "ESPN hates Tennessee" false narrative again. It's so tiring
 
#21
#21
JCHateSteve said:
It's been happening for decades. Even when we were winning 10-12 games a year, Tennessee always gets the short end of the commentary. When John Ward was on our call I'd just mute the TV and listen to him. But I have a hard time listening to Kesling. Hopefully the next radio guy is better and I can quit listening to the TV commentary again.
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I watched 2 games this past week from the 1997 season. The ESPN announcers were giving us nothing but love. Your first statement is 100% false.
 
#22
#22
Quality TV announcers are slim pickings these days. In the past we had people like Musburger and color analysts who played in NFL. Nowadays we get the likes of Stinchcomb, Pollack, Jordan Rodgers and McElroy- all bottom feeders who loathe UT.
 
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