Friday, March 18, 2011

ABC and ESPN Sucks

Update.-- Sunday. And just when I find it, or really they, couldn't suck more, they outdo themselves. They scheduled a 90-minute recap of the race today at 3:00 PM except when the men's ATP finals went long and well into the show, they simply didn't air it. It was scheduled in the coming week for several other times in the hours between midnight and 4 am. Gee, like we're all awake. Just record it. And my response? Simple, screw ABC. I already boycott them anyway, so now they can go screw themselves.

Update.-- Saturday. This sucks even more. My ISP doesn't carry ESPN3.com service. So no race on TV. No race on the Internet. No race for me. And so to ABC and ESPN, no viewer and now no customer. I still watch ESPN occasionally but ABC just lost one customer.

Yes, the joint ownership of these networks suck, really suck. I've never liked ABC Sports for the delay broadcasts even in recent years when the news of the events was already known and written. Who wants to watch a race when everything is available on the Internet? And I've never liked their coverage of any sports event with Brent Musburger. He's an ignornate, opinionated jerk who puts his face and voice into something either he doesn't know or is so biased as to demean the opponents.

And now ABC/ESPN who now has the broadcasts rights to the American LeMans series races has decided not to provide live network or cable television coverage of this year's Sebring 12-hour race, the oldest sports car race in the US. It's only available on ESPN3.com, the internet channel, which presumes you have the broadband connection to keep the video running on your browser while doing other work.

In the past years Speed Channel had the ALMS races and put a lot of work into the Sebring race. They did a great job and I could put it on Saturday while doing other things around the house. They have great announcers, excellent television coverage and almost all 12 hours of the race.

I don't know what happened for ABC/ESPN to get the ALMS races but so far they're lost one viewer in me. All of the rest of the season pales in respect to the Sebring race. And they've decided the NCAA tournament reaps more money. Screw the sportscar fans. Just buy the rights and screw the public. At least they could have provided it HD pay-per-view, but no, screw the cable companies and their subscribers too.

Well, for that I can say in return, screw ABC/ESPN and their NCAA coverage. I'll boycott them as they're boycotting me.

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