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The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running
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Hi Slowtwitch Fam,
The topic of growing swimming/triathlon/running to "mainstream" sports that the world cares about more than once every four years is something that I am very passionate about (and you can argue that triathlon, at least at the Olympic level, doesn't yet capture the world's attention at the Olympic Games), so excuse the long post as I've wanted to get these thoughts down for a while. I personally believe that the broadcasts and productions of these sports in non-Olympic competitions has a huge impact on the public's perception and growth of triathlon/swimming/running. Specifically, I think the commentating has been especially sub par over the course of the past year, and is really important as to how the "average" viewer perceives the sport.
Something that we have seen to know for a while, but the governing body of those sports can't seem to grasp, is that "standard" triathlon races, swim meets, and track meets do not make for good TV and broadcasts. I understand keeping the Olympics and World Championship races more traditional, and I think that is very important for the integrity of those sports, but why keep that same format of racing throughout the rest of the year at your major professional events? I know that triathlon has been doing those mini sprint races for decades that have been very popular and fun to watch, but as far as I'm aware they haven't gotten the proper backing, funding, and broadcasting from national bodies.

So my main question is, how does the triathlon/endurance community feel about the quality of broadcasting in triathlon/swimming/running? What are the main things that can be improved? Are you satisfied with the marketing/outreach efforts of the main governing bodies?

I'm going to focus specifically on swimming now, as that is what my specialty is and what's been on my mind the most lately. USA Swimming had an incredibly successful Rio games, with lots of potential superstars emerging that are easily marketable in my opinion. But since Rio, I feel like USA Swimming did not capitalize on that at all, and we have simply fallen back into the normal pattern of no one caring outside of the swimming community, waiting for Tokyo 2020 again.
For those of you that do not know, USA Swimming has a domestic series of events called the Arena Pro Swim Series (APSS) that take place throughout the year, with modest cash prizes for event winners. They always stream these events live on their website, and NBC Sports will usually air a tape delay of the race. For an organization that has roughly 500,000 members, the numbers for the livestream have been abysmal; when Katie Ledecky was going the 3rd fastest time in the history of the sport two weeks ago at the Santa Clara APSS, there were 450 people watching the stream. I competed at the APSS in Austin back in January, and the stands were empty every session; there was only a small sign out front about the event, but other than that it seemed like no local outreach was done.
I think that a lot of pros that I've talked to are at times scared to talk about these issues, since they are to an extent at the mercy of the sports governing bodies, which is why I think it is important for people like my myself who don't have a stake in the pro athlete world right now to stand up for this and at the very least ensure that the governing bodies know that there is an issue and that they need to change what they've been doing.

I will also say that I am not a huge fan of Rowdy Gaines' commentary, who is the person that essentially works every single major swim competition on NBC and ESPN. How does the Slowtwitch community feel about his style? Or is it something that you didn't notice? Again, a lot of the elite swimmers that I have talked to recently are not a fan, but are afraid of voicing their opinions because he is so closely tied to executives at USA Swimming by this point. Yes, he has "energy and passion" for swimming, but a lot of times for me that just manifests itself as shouting and not actually walking viewers through what's going on in a race. And there are countless times where his "facts" about the sport are just plain wrong. His counter is that there's a reason he's done 7 Olympic games and that USA Swimming membership has exponentially grown during that time period, but how much can you simply attribute that to the Phelps factor, and could another broadcasting crew done even better?

Here's a recent example from the APSS in Mesa, Arizona, and it's not even a particularly bad example, just an average broadcast. https://www.youtube.com/...L8K9RI4Uo&t=291s (skip to around 1:40 for the race start)
So they don't actually start talking about the race at hand until it is 3/4 of the way done. Jacob Pebley has an incredible story (the backstroker that wins the race), and I would love to hear about that either before or after the event to build it up and give context to the situation. Hardly any of the other racers were even mentioned, and there was very little context on how fast they were going, technique, etc. As an "average" viewer around the country, I feel like I would be completely in the dark for the majority of the race, but maybe I'm being to picky. What're your thoughts?

Looking forward to your guys' comments and having a good discussion. My goal is to always keep moving the sports of swimming/triathlon/running forward and growing them to a mainstream audience.

The Gram: @agyenis
My latest story on Swimswam: More than a title
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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I don't care about commentary in the tri sports. I want to see 50 splits in swimming on the left side of the screen, by lane number not by time. In fact, I want to see splits in all sports. The best part about timed competition-whoever has the fastest time wins. It's a beautiful thing. I watch to see who's the fastest, not to hear who had a challenging childhood, etc. that's just me. I mute Rowdy most of the time.

This is just me, but I'm an athlete who knows more about these sports than the avg citizen. Plebs (/pink) will want the backstory and drama production. I prefer just to watch the race since I know what's going on.

"The person on top of the mountain didn't fall there." - unkown

also rule 5
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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Having Chris Heinrich Watson do the broadcast instead of Rowdy for starters. Chris mostly does on deck announcing but could do a great broadcast (he has been the on deck announcer at lots of meets here in Canada as well as the US, he has done FINA worlds and was the on deck voice in Rio). Flo Swimming did the Mare Nostrum meets, the race videos seemed ok. The idea of tape delay on a network is useless. Get it on YouTube within 4 hours of the race.

Australia has done a few different types of tv or spectator friendly meets over the last 25 years or so.


My thought is to develop athlete centred content that can be linked back from race videos. Watch a race from a certain swimmer and you can watch a bio video or a workout Wednesday type video...

___________________________________________
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Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [boobooaboo] [ In reply to ]
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That's a great point that I forgot about; the idea of simply showing the splits of all competitors should be a basic function that is included with all broadcasts, but I've never seen it now that I think about it.

The Gram: @agyenis
My latest story on Swimswam: More than a title
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [realAB] [ In reply to ]
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realAB wrote:
Having Chris Heinrich Watson do the broadcast instead of Rowdy for starters. Chris mostly does on deck announcing but could do a great broadcast (he has been the on deck announcer at lots of meets here in Canada as well as the US, he has done FINA worlds and was the on deck voice in Rio). Flo Swimming did the Mare Nostrum meets, the race videos seemed ok. The idea of tape delay on a network is useless. Get it on YouTube within 4 hours of the race.

Australia has done a few different types of tv or spectator friendly meets over the last 25 years or so.


My thought is to develop athlete centred content that can be linked back from race videos. Watch a race from a certain swimmer and you can watch a bio video or a workout Wednesday type video...

I agree that Chris is a much better announcer and would love to see him in the NBC booth.

And that idea of truly leveraging social media/Youtube/athlete profiles by the governing bodies is something that I would love to see more of. I think a lot of that also falls on the individual athlete though, and how they "separate" themselves from other competitors with their own quirks, etc.

The Gram: @agyenis
My latest story on Swimswam: More than a title
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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Without Rowdy, how would you ever know that Joe Swimmer is breathing to his right, and can't see Bob Swimmer coming up on his left? How would you ever know that?

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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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I enjoy watching olympic swimming once every four years. That is more than enough for me. You can change the format, change the announcer, change whatever, but I watch because it is the olympics not because it is swimming. So changing those other elements will not get me to watch during the off years. I suspect that a lot of non-athletes share my view ... which is why shortly after the 2020 olympics we will be having this same discussion.
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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Jasen Pratt is also a good announcer / broadcaster as well. He did the swim Canada Live stream and does on deck stuff as well. His son Cole is a talented swimmer ... probably going 55xx in 100 fly lcm this summer at age 14.

___________________________________________
http://en.wikipedia.org/...eoesophageal_fistula
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerebral_palsy
2020 National Masters Champion - M40-44 - 400m IM
Canadian Record Holder 35-39M & 40-44M - 200 m Butterfly (LCM)
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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There is no reason not to do live streaming to youtube or facebook live for major meets these days. Ads are easily embedded (they can scroll or pop up in a corner, I think the Europeans have done that for years in football coverage so they don't have to break to commercial).

Any commentators need to take a course from spanish or italian futbol announcers too. They know how to deliver commentary, even though I don't understand a word of it...

Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [realAB] [ In reply to ]
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I'm terrible at remembering the names, but i did like him. Much better than Byron...

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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I understand that my example was heavily swim focused, but I'm assuming by being here you have an interest in triathlon and endurance sports, so do you feel the same way about triathlon? And I'm assuming that you (and "non-athletes) don't want to watch swimming other than the Olympics because you don't find it entertaining and carrying that same level of importance, but what I'm curious about is if there are ways we can change that so the non-athletes do find entertainment and importance in other competitions throughout the quad.

The Gram: @agyenis
My latest story on Swimswam: More than a title
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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For the Rio Olympics, I caught the last 30 mins of the women's tri and maybe the last 20 mins of the men's tri on TV. Outside of the Olympics I watch the Kona broadcast each year and occasionally stumble across a tri-related broadcast. E.g., last year I bumbled into Island House on TV even though I had never heard of it. This year, I caught one hour of the Super League. But really, I don't watch TV that much; and when my youngest leaves for college the end of this summer, I am cutting the cord as so many others have. The latter issue represents another huge hurdle to jump. No longer is the question just how to make content more attractive to TV audiences; but how to get that content to people who have left TV.
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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agyenis wrote:
So my main question is, how does the triathlon/endurance community feel about the quality of broadcasting in triathlon/swimming/running?

Super league was good, but not much of a league with only one event...
The ITU coverage is decent, well worth the few $'s to have full races.
Challenge championship was also reasonable.

Overall I think it's pretty good. I'd like to see coverage of age group races, doesn't have to be fancy but live video from the event + rolling times from the course would be great. With a little thought it should be possible to create some decent entertainment, where else do you have >>10 races going on concurrently.
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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There is no reason not to do live streaming to youtube or facebook live for major meets these days. Ads are easily embedded (they can scroll or pop up in a corner, I think the Europeans have done that for years in football coverage so they don't have to break to commercial).

Any commentators need to take a course from spanish or italian futbol announcers too. They know how to deliver commentary, even though I don't understand a word of it...



This is a fast growing area. I'm doing more and more Live Stream Commentary work every year for two of my key clients - Athletics Canada and Cycling Canada.

Live streaming technology continues to improve and get better and better.

Now, if an event or organization wants a more professional feel to whatever they doing, it is going to cost them. I work closely with RunnerSpace on the Athletics Canada Meet coverage commentary. We just did a Live-Stream of a big invitational Track Meet on Wednesday night this week. RunnerSpace has this REALLY dialed in for running - track meets, XC and road racing. It's been a pleasure working with them for the past two years.

Triathlon, still struggles with this, my sense is because, budgets, and money is just not there yet, other than with ITU level races and select, other races and events where the race takes on the burden of doing that live stream.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [HuffNPuff] [ In reply to ]
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But really, I don't watch TV that much; and when my youngest leaves for college the end of this summer, I am cutting the cord as so many others have. The latter issue represents another huge hurdle to jump. No longer is the question just how to make content more attractive to TV audiences; but how to get that content to people who have left TV

This is why Live-Streaming IS the future for non-mainstream sports like the key endurance sports - running, cycling and triathlon:

1) Many people are cutting the cord for traditional TV.

2) Real professional TV production is VERY expensive. People have no idea. They watch so much TV, Pro team sports and then say the Olympic Games, where they may watch some other non-main-stream sports, like triathlon, but they have no idea HOW expensive that level of professional production is to deliver. You need BIG advertising dollars to make all of that work.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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You have to have human interest stories to get a large audience. That is just the way it is.

American Nina Warrior and Spartan races are decent ratings draw for NBC. They have "semi-scripted" human interest stories.

The best thing I can come up with for a triathlon format is a show where a Pro & Joe team up to race others Pro/Joe teams. 8 weeks someone gets eliminated everyweek. You would need to sell some of the sexiness of the athletes and the Joes would need to have an athletic background that they have lost but are trying to get back.

Would you watch that?

I watch every ITU broadcast but my wife has watched 20 seconds total (when Johnnie blew up in the finally last year). That is what it takes to get her attention.
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [Fleck] [ In reply to ]
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In our neck of the woods, AUS (Atlantic University Sport) livestreams a bunch of sports including the AUS Swimming championships, which I watched the last couple of years. Last year they had David Sharpe providing colour commentary along with the main guy (forget who it was), low budget production (I think they have 2 cameras, at least one of them is fixed) but still very good because Sharpe wasn't that far removed from his competitive career, and actually knows the guys and girls who were in the pool, so his commentary were a lot of things that you couldn't get just by watching the race or a couple of previous races.

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Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [ajthomas] [ In reply to ]
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@ajthomas
That reminded me of this, which I actually think was a pretty interesting event for the sport of swimming: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWJ7SmOVUO8

The "reality" tv angle is another side that I hadn't really considered, and I like that idea of a weekly "elimination" format

The Gram: @agyenis
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [JasoninHalifax] [ In reply to ]
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In our neck of the woods, AUS (Atlantic University Sport) livestreams a bunch of sports including the AUS Swimming championships, which I watched the last couple of years. Last year they had David Sharpe providing colour commentary along with the main guy (forget who it was), low budget production (I think they have 2 cameras, at least one of them is fixed) but still very good because Sharpe wasn't that far removed from his competitive career, and actually knows the guys and girls who were in the pool, so his commentary were a lot of things that you couldn't get just by watching the race or a couple of previous races.

Yes - University sports in Canada, have been big adopters of this - both the schools themselves, and the provincial associations and Usports at the national level.


It's games such as the Vanier Cup, and the final-4 in Basketball, that are going to get TV (cable - TSN/Sportsnet) coverage. Everything else, is going to have to look at Live-Streaming, which they are actively doing.

Here costs can be kept low, after some technology and hardware investment, to utilize the talents in School Programs such as Media, Journalism and Broadcasting, for no or low cost with Students doing most of the work and the being the on-air talent. It's win/win here as the school get's the football, volleyball game, or track or swim meet out there to a wider audience of viewers and the kids get real hands-on experience broadcasting stuff.


Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog
Last edited by: Fleck: Jun 16, 17 11:56
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [Fleck] [ In reply to ]
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On the other hand, I did try to find the OUA swim champs and couldn't. Had a discussion with my old coach, and he seemed to think that ontario was lagging in this regard (among others...)

Swimming Workout of the Day:

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2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly
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Re: The Importance of Event Broadcasting/Production on the Growth of Triathlon/Swimming/Running [agyenis] [ In reply to ]
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And just in the news today:
http://ftw.usatoday.com/2017/06/michael-phelps-shark

The Gram: @agyenis
My latest story on Swimswam: More than a title
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