During televised sporting events, why must the broadcasters be speaking at all times?

Yeah, I have thought this before too. They are always blabbing! Especially during football…spitting out far fetched statistics and making incorrect observations lol but I feel like somehow if it was silent it would be weird too.

I too have though of this. I say mic the field, the refs & umps and the crowd and shut up at least 50% of the time.

I can’t stand how they blabber on and on either, and after an hour or two of listening to it sometimes I feel like I might go nuts and I have to change the channel for a bit. But then again, when there is a lull of several seconds where none of the commentators are speaking…it seems a little awkward! I like @cprevite‘s idea of mic-ing the field, etc., so that the commentators wouldn’t have to talk so damn much, and there also wouldn’t be complete awkward silence.

I thought of this the last time I went to a game. When the game in in progress, there was very little sound, just the sound of the game I paid to see. It was glorious.

You’d absolutely have to mic the field and there’s a lot of people it’d be a hit with.
I’ve tried turning off the sound and listening to an album but then you don’t hear the game at all.
Is there a cable service I can pay for so I can watch the game without having to hear all the yapping?

I think it’s a ploy to hold the attention of an evermore attention challenged audience. If they can keep the viewers saturated with stimulation, they’re less likely to channel surf during the interludes between action on the field.

Have you ever watched BBC coverage of a sporting event? I remember once watching Wimbledon, with the American commentators babbling away as per usual, then for some reason they cut to the BBC coverage….mostly silence, with the very occasional commentary.

The Golden Rule of Broadcasting, from the earliest days, is “No dead air”.

@jaytkay and girls in extremely short skirts like the women of fox news.

Maybe because football is boring and they need to keep talking or start snoring?

Just a thought ha ha.

Dale

@FishGutsDale Football is only boring if you don’t understand the strategy that goes into every play… IMHO.

@Dr_C I’m Australian, so i’m clueless when it comes to gridiron or anything. I’ve watched it a couple times on ESPN but it is very stop start, stop start. You should watch Aussie Rules footy…Now there’s a game.

@FishGutsDale I can understand not liking football because it IS very start and stop. And I agree—especially if you don’t know teams and you aren’t really rooting for anyone, it can be a bit bland. But! When you’re into it and you’re really pulling for a certain outcome, it can be super exciting :)

Football was never specifically mentioned as a premise to this question. This can apply to any sport. However it was noted during many occasions of watching futbol the announcers were relatively subdued. That is how I like it.

@FishGutsDale i actually really enjoy ARF… in fact.. for a long tiem the punter for my Beloved San Diego Chargers was a former Aussie Rules Footballer by the name of Darren Bennet. Tough guy.. he was one of the hardest hitters on the team :p

It is annoying and, IMO, unnecessary. It isn’t like listening to the game on the radio where all you have to go by is the commentary. I would not be as irritated by my husband watching football all the time if not for the incessant talking. I would be annoyed by anyone who talked at me constantly for 4 hours.

@Dr_C He use to play for the West Coast. Super tough bloke haha! All the good ones defect. @deni i would love to understand it, i enjoy watching football movies (Varsity Blues etc).

Let me know if I’m spewing gibberish, but sporting events go back a long time, to a time where there was only radio (no television). The radio commentators set the standard (no dead air, describing everything to the blind). Which, I assume, was copied over directly to television. Fifty years later, commentators still start out by working on radio and hope to get that promotion to television. I understand, that a lot of your sporting commentators in the US come from the sport itself, maybe those that don’t have any experience might conform and do what’s expected of them by the standard their colleagues have set before them. So blame the standard.

That’s not to say all commentary is bad. I have the option to watch Formula 1 on three stations (Dutch television-> one guy, with commercials, Belgian & English television-> multiple guys, no commercials). I prefer to watch it on Dutch television with commercials, not because it’s in my own language, but because the guy knows what he’s talking about, has insider information and often tells his audience what’s happening before the Formula 1 television director (who has access to all angles on playback) knows. But more importantly he doesn’t have to compete with others to keep his job safe. As soon as multiple people start yapping it starts to become a competition for airtime and attention. Without a good commentator Formula 1 would be boring (in fact, when I went to a live Formula 1 race, I used a radio to listen to the Dutch commenter’s commentary).

What amazes me though is the Tour de France, an etappe (day race) takes hours (during which nothing spectacular happens, till the last 2 minutes) and there is not one second of silence between the commentators. Might have something to do with the fact that people start zapping when they hit silence.

Edit: I could have just removed all my incoherent babble and leave the three sentences I highlighted, however in the spirit of the question I decided to leave it as is :)

Anyone miss Madden? ~

I like watching tennis because they don’t do that very much.

@jonsblond YES. if brett favre had no arms and legs he’d still be the best torso in football

@jaytkay is 100% correct. Dead air is broadcasting death. When you are at a live sporting event you are a part of the crowd and immersed in a totally different vibe. This does not translate well to tv where the crowd becomes white noise.