TBS, Fox Allow Users To Be The Director With Online LCS Coverage
By Jim Williams, Correspondent
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Watching an entire baseball game, even a League Championship game, can be tough. There is an urge to channel surf when things get boring. But what if you could be the game director and pick the shots, controlling what you see in your own home? Both Fox and TBS offer a free chance for users at home to grab their laptops and do just that.
CONTROL PICTURE: FoxSports.com offers anyone with broadband the chance to direct the Phillies-Dodgers NLCS. Producer Pete Macheska and director Bill Webb offer a variety of options to online directors, though none include any commentary from the game’s announcers. There are four camera angles from which you can choose to create your own game coverage. First, the center field shot shows the pitcher–batter shot. It also adds a pitch tracker that follows the direction of the ball, charts its location and gives the speed of the pitch. Another camera follows the action in both the Dodgers’ and the Phillies’ dugouts. Then, the low first base camera follows the runners; if no one is on base, it is used to track the ball after it is hit. Finally, there is a camera that shows a number of different shots, the coolest one being a diamond cam buried about 15 feet from home plate that gives an up-close and personal view of the batter. The cameras are controlled by using the computer’s mouse and picking the shots from a mosaic option. A perfect example of how to use the multiple camera shots came in Game 2 in Philadelphia. From the low first base camera, I had the shot of Phillies 3B Gregg Dobbs scoring the game-tying run all the way from first base on a Carlos Ruiz double. I could see the speed of Dobbs as he rounded the bases and then crossed home to tie the game. At the same time with my dugout camera, I was able to capture the animated reactions of Dodgers manager Joe Torre and third base coach Larry Bowa.
CHANGE-UP: The major downside to this computer option is that there is always a delay in the action between what you see on TV and what you see on your computer screen. In fact, the on-air broadcast can be as much as a minute ahead of the computer. But on the other hand, that gave me the opportunity to search out the details of any play or pitch I found interesting on TV. For example, when Phillies P Cole Hamels kept the Dodgers batters off balance in Game 1, I was able to use the pitch track from the center field shot to see how he masterfully painted the plate. I would suggest that Fox Sports add a game camera that gives a shot of the entire field in order to enable the viewer to see the action as a whole. However, all in all, the FoxSports.com experience was fun and easy to use with a good picture quality.
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TBS Hot Corner Offers Online Viewers
Exclusive Between-Innings Interviews |
ON THE PLATE: TBS Hot Corner on TBS.com provides the Red Sox-Rays ALCS series on your computer. Producer Matt Miller and director Mardy Beeson offer four views of the game like the Fox team. However, to change the camera shot, TBS has a menu on the right side of the screen rather than allowing you to click on the screen as Fox does. TBS also features reporter Tim Singer, who provides exclusive between-innings interviews with players and fans that are not seen on TV. I especially enjoyed his one-on-one conversation with ESPN basketball analyst Dick Vitale about his long time support of the Rays during Game 1 of the ALCS. Still, no offense to Singer but I miss former Hot Corner reporter Alyssa Milano. Meanwhile, TBS runs CNN and Blackberry spots from time to time between innings, which I found annoying. Moreover, switching between camera shots sometimes triggered a 30 second Blackberry spot. Also like Fox, it would have been nice to have had a game camera that provided an overall view of the field. But in the end, TBS Hot Corner was a good compliment to the broadcast.
IT'S A HIT: FoxSports.com and TBS Hot Corner offer an entertaining and fun experience to those at home who have fancied themselves as television sports directors. And frankly, even those who have never wanted a career in TV production will also enjoy these additional features to the League Championship games.
Jim Williams is a seven-time Sports Emmy Award-winning TV producer, director and writer who lives in Baltimore. He will be reviewing sports programming occasionally for SportsBusiness Daily and SportsBusiness Journal. He can be reached at jameswilliams360@comcast.net.
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