Good morning. Games begin to kick off this Thursday. A few reminders, personal opinions, an FAQ of sorts, to help you and to help me keep my sanity as men's basketball listings and football telecast changes come out all at once. This, like tax season for accountants, is my "busy season".
* ABC regional coverage and reverse mirror maps tend to come out on Wednesdays. They might get tweaked into Thursday or Friday if a station wishes to switch out to another game. I do not create the maps or have any insight into why a local station made the decision it did. If you have a question, contact your local station.
* ESPN windows change slightly. Some cases they offer a reverse mirror of the ABC primetime game. I don't work for ESPN. I like to believe I have a decent rapport with them to possibly get a question or two answered, but I am not ESPN themselves.
* I don't know why ESPN/FOX/CBS/ABC chose Game X over Game Y. I'm not an unfeeling person when it comes to that, but I have lesser concerns about that. I'll watch on ESPN3 if that's what I have to do.
* I don't know where the Pac-12 Network is on DirecTV and I do think cable customers were kinda shafted when their MSOs decided to pick and choose which systems they were to carry the games. Scream loudly or switch if you can.
* Sometimes, I know why a game is blacked out in your area. Most of the time, I don't. If DirecTV or Dish are blacking out a game unfairly, contact them, the network in question, or the conference. I had this problem with MAC games on SportsTime Ohio. I live in the Cleveland market and the games were being blacked out inadvertently. DirecTV didn't know what was going on and emails to STO were my only recourse.
Many of these networks, conferences, MSOs have Twitter and Facebook pages. Not suggesting that you should get an account to either of these services, but they may have posts there that explain why you aren't seeing a game.
* I really hate predicting television times for people more than a month out. I don't hate the question, but you really shouldn't be relying on me for that, particularly if you're trying to book a flight. There's rules in play that the networks have to follow (ie. appearances by teams) and I don't know every one of them. And as I said before, networks can alter their telecast times. My advice to you: If you fly on the day of the game, book the first flight in or get there the previous evening.
* FSN regional listings are tentative (really all regional listings are), and with the Comcast Sportsnet RSNs dropping FSN programming, its dicey as to how those games will get cleared in the CSN areas. I only know of WDCA carrying a handful of FSN games. If you've seen or heard anything concrete, let me know. But I'll probably be relying on the sheets that FOX provides to C-USA and the Big 12.
* If I don't acknowledge your question on Twitter or Facebook, it could be for a myriad of reasons. One could be that I have a day job, one that pays the bills, and I am focused on that. It's also quite possible that I either want to research something before I answer you. I may be pissed off, not necessarily at you or your question, and your question might not get an answer you like. So its possible that you'll be ignored. Please don't take offense.
And please, before you post something to my Twitter, check to see if I've posted something there about it or on my site to see if I've listed a game. There's a chance its there.
* I'm often not at home on Saturday. Believe it or not, after getting the listings set, I tend to leave the house and listen to a game or two on radio. My F-150 has high miles for a 2 year old because of that, but at least I didn't lease it.
* I really don't care who is announcing the game and I don't post them on my site. Does it annoy me if an announcer is factually incorrect about something? Sure, but it doesn't hamper any part of my viewing experience. Don't let it hamper yours. The PxP guy and the analyst have never caught a TD, picked off a pass or fumbled the ball while working the game.
And no matter how good an announcer is, he can't shine up a turd of a game into gold. Sorry, a game doesn't have more impact because Gus, Brent, Brad or Verne is there. If its a 6-3 cluster with scads of turnovers, its not a great game no matter who the PxP guy is.
* Enjoy the games. Thanks for stopping by.
1 comment:
Awful Announcing (awfulannouncing.com) will usually have announcers for games.
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