Versus getting it right!

[disko]

Thank you. After years of dribble broadcasting, I enjoyed watching todays qualifying show. yes, a couple of snafu's, but a tremendouse improvement. Good booth chemistry. I only dread having to hear the 500 on ABC now.

[NickFalzone]

I agree. Jenkins and team are still a little rough around the edges, but I like the smarts on display. Much less condescending than the ESPN broadcasts. For the true race fan, the VS package seems ideal: good production values along with knowledgable announcing that doesn't talk down to the viewer. I don't know how it comes off to a new viewer to the IRL, but for me I thought it was a very solid show, and should play out even better for tomorrow's race.

[MDS]

I'm disappointed that they decided to go the cheerleader route rather than the objective journalist route. I laughed out loud when Bob Jenkins said Graham Rahal "Won millions of fans" with his win at St. Pete last year. That was quiet a feat for Graham as far less than a half-million watched the race. So essentially he won over the audience four or five times. Good for him, bad for Jenkins, who has lost any credibility he once had as a journalist.

[ykiki]

I'm disappointed that they decided to go the cheerleader route rather than the objective journalist route. I laughed out loud when Bob Jenkins said Graham Rahal "Won millions of fans" with his win at St. Pete last year. That was quiet a feat for Graham as far less than a half-million watched the race. So essentially he won over the audience four or five times. Good for him, bad for Jenkins, who has lost any credibility he once had as a journalist.

No surprises there. Jenkins has always been a cheerleader. I don't mind that as long as he's tempered by others in the booth like Jon Beekhuis or Robby Buhl.

[MDS]

No surprises there. Jenkins has always been a cheerleader. I don't mind that as long as he's tempered by others in the booth like Jon Beekhuis or Robby Buhl.

Nothing against Robby Buhl, but as a team owner, I would expect him to lead cheers loudly and often.

[DBell]

I saw part of qualifying and thought announce team was an improvement. For me, getting Goodyear out of the both was a must. I understand that he'll be there for the ABC/ESPN races.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't ESPN still doing the production part? I thought that was said when the TV deal was announced.

[Wilf]

I'm disappointed that they decided to go the cheerleader route rather than the objective journalist route. I laughed out loud when Bob Jenkins said Graham Rahal "Won millions of fans" with his win at St. Pete last year. That was quiet a feat for Graham as far less than a half-million watched the race. So essentially he won over the audience four or five times. Good for him, bad for Jenkins, who has lost any credibility he once had as a journalist.
So long as you assume the win was never talked or written about again, you are correct. However, with just the month of May promotions and shows last year, not to mention the promos for each subsequent race, I'd be willing to bet that Jenkins was correct.

Mr Jenkins was never a journalist; he has always been a race announcer. I don't really want to get into politics but most journalists rank right up there with attorneys on the credibility scale.

[Mad_Hatter]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't ESPN still doing the production part? I thought that was said when the TV deal was announced.

From my understanding it was and still is IMS Productions or something of the sort.


I only caught a few parts of the qual coverage, but I was also impressed with what I saw.

[chuck34]

I'm disappointed that they decided to go the cheerleader route rather than the objective journalist route. I laughed out loud when Bob Jenkins said Graham Rahal "Won millions of fans" with his win at St. Pete last year. That was quiet a feat for Graham as far less than a half-million watched the race. So essentially he won over the audience four or five times. Good for him, bad for Jenkins, who has lost any credibility he once had as a journalist.

So you want someone in the broadcast booth who will talk down the product he is there covering? That is an interesting concept, but one I'm sure NO sport would want to follow.

[chuck34]

You could tell the guys were nervious/rusty. They stumbled over a few names, but I'm sure they will have it ironed out soon. Or at least I hope so. Other than that, I thought it was pretty good.

[DanicaFan]

My biggest disappointment is that the qualifications arent live. It takes the excitment out of it when you know the outcome.

[MDS]

So you want someone in the broadcast booth who will talk down the product he is there covering? That is an interesting concept, but one I'm sure NO sport would want to follow.

I'm not saying I want someone to talk down the sport, but it would be nice if they announcers tried to remain a little bit objective. Graham didn't win millions of fans with his win last year, the numbers don't bear that out. He may have gained a couple of hundred at most.

There are a dozen more accurate lines that talk up Graham without sounding outlandish or moronic. Everything from the combative: Young Rahal one-upped other young Americans Marco Andretti and Danica Patrick by winning in his first race. To: Rahal announced his arrival by becoming the youngest winner ever at the top level of American Open Wheel, and one of the youngest drivers ever to win a major race, putting him in the same sentence with Kyle Bush, Jeff Gordon, Mario Andretti and Nigel Mansell.

I'd like the announcers to have enough credibility so when they say something positive, I could potentially believe them. But routinely engaging in grand hyperbole makes one doubt the credibility of the person saying it.

[disko]

I think there a lot of variables with Grahams win. For example, because of his win, we featured him and a Promo the IRL did for us. I can say we reached about 70,000 last year with Graham. Did we win them over, I cant say - but it brought him exposure. And that exposure brought him a new audience.

We were just a microcosm, but add up the exposure channels and Im sure hes reaching millions. Won us over? I cant say but underdog son-of rookie is a great place to start winning over fans.

Give Jenkins a little slack. Like I said, It was a hell of an improvement. Lets see how the race goes.

[ChicagocrewIRL]

my biggest plus is NO BRIANNE PEDIGO !!!

[beachbum]

You could tell the guys were nervious/rusty. They stumbled over a few names, but I'm sure they will have it ironed out soon. Or at least I hope so. Other than that, I thought it was pretty good.Jenkins has always been known to be a bit "name challenged", so mixing up names is nothing new.

Overall, this is a huge improvement over the joke we had to endure previously. The quality of the HD was very impressive and they sure used lots of cameras. Comparing the Versus coverage to the ESPN /ABC coverage of the ALMS race earlier in the day really illustrated how poorly ESPN covers racing these days.

[ChicagocrewIRL]

Does anyone know if Gene Simmons and his "marketing firm" have been sacked ? Have we heard the last of that gawd awful "I am Indy" theme music ? It's my belief that the IRL should sue to get their money back from that hack.

[Wade91]

yeah, its awesome to get more coverage like this :D

[call_me_andrew]

It's a shame we can't make polls here. It would have been interesting to see what channel people would rather have IndyCar on when the choices are CW, My Network, PBS, HBO/PPV, Showtime, Comcast Sportsnet, Travel Channel, and BBC America.

[jwhite9185]

Far too many adverts here in the UK - seemed like they went to a break every 10 mins or so!

[wedge]

Mr Jenkins was never a journalist; he has always been a race announcer. I don't really want to get into politics but most journalists rank right up there with attorneys on the credibility scale.

Bring back Jeremy Shaw

[DBell]

Far too many adverts here in the UK - seemed like they went to a break every 10 mins or so!


Welcome to television in the US. Sucks, doesn't it? :D

[seppefan]

Far too many adverts here in the UK - seemed like they went to a break every 10 mins or so!

Crazy, crazy. I liked the build up and it was a good race which helps. At least we had four less advert breaks and then had the Eurosport team with three sensible people making sensible comments. Too many ads and too much rubbish spoken by the commentators in the US. But turn off the volume and what fun.

[bblocker68]

It was refreshing yesterday to watch IndyCar on Versus. I'm usually underwhelmed when I was an Indy race after F1, since the crew is soooooo much better at SpeedTV than the crap we had at the evil 4 letter network.

Kudos to Lindy Thackston. She seemed like she did her homework and was an integral part of the announcing team. It was nice to see a lady on pit row who knew her stuff.

[wedge]

Kudos to Lindy Thackston. She seemed like she did her homework and was an integral part of the announcing team. It was nice to see a lady on pit row who knew her stuff.

She was pit reporter for Radio Le Mans/ALMS radio commentary

[AussieV8]

Far too many adverts here in the UK - seemed like they went to a break every 10 mins or so!

We had lots of ad breaks as well in Australia, but they only lasted for 2 or 3 ads. No where near as bad as the 4 or 5 minute ad breaks we get on commercial TV.

[Marbles]

From the chopped up TSN 4:00 a.m. rebroadcast (the TSN 2 live feed isn't available to cable subscribers in this little tiny market called Toronto... it's a local peeing match between media outlets) it wasn't bad. But that doesn't make it a good thing necessarily.

Pros: Camera coverage and direction seemed a bit more spot on than in past years. It was certainly better than that CC coverage from years ago. All HD as opposed the on board SD cams that are used by the ALMS was another good thing. A slimmer screen crawl and not that ever present banner that totally obscures the top fifth of the screen that FOX introduced to all of us. Not as good as they do in Britain but it's better. Crisp and clean. Beekhuis is back!

Cons: Arute is back! Jenkins sounds confused as always and although it was surely in jest, his questioning whether there may be some sort of fence climbing tribute paid to Helio by the eventual race winner and how much Helio is missed by all was awkward to say the least. What hospital is Helio staying at? I want to send flowers!

If you thought having Scott Goodyear go on at length about what "marbles" are race in and race out was fun wait until to you hear Beekhuis explain what "marbles" are then hear Buhl repeat him, almost word for word, right afterwards It's twice the fun!

Some credit should go to Jenkins for being able to see what was going on with all the pom-poms flying around in the booth. I'm not a fan of crowded play by play booths (especially when they contain mechanics) but Buhl doesn't offer anything different from Beekhuis. If your going to have a third mouth up their he should have a bit of an edge to him like a Brundle or a Kendall. At least offer a differing view point. I think think these two guys will be spending a lot more time agreeing than disagreeing.
But the jury is still out! Buhl may get better.

[NickFalzone]

I didn't really notice a long discussion about the marbles, maybe a couple minutes at most. I did feel like they spent way too much time discussing the primary vs the ultimate tires. We get it, one tire is slightly faster and has a shorter life than the other. It's an interesting addition to the competition. But they talked about those damn tires the WHOLE race. And Jack Arute's "new faces, new places" (had to be his idea) was just dumb. Overall I liked the telecast and the announcing, was pleasantly surprised by Lindy and Robby. But get off the tires, IMO they barely affected the race.

[DanicaFan]

My biggest con is taped qualifications. Televise those live!

[Dr. Krogshöj]

I was dissapointed by the coverage because I was expecting a better one after all the hype. The people in the booth are alright, but there was too much of Jack Arute and everything he said was extremely cheesy. During the buildup, some segments were ridiculous, like the 'Transformer' intro, some were outright emberassing, like Wheldon's baby pitstop or the announcer's nicknames (Action Thackston, Roulette Aroute etc.). In general I felt that the coverage was dumbed down to an extremely young or extremely dumb audience.

[garyshell]

I was disappointed by the coverage because I was expecting a better one after all the hype. The people in the booth are alright, but there was too much of Jack Arute and everything he said was extremely cheesy. During the buildup, some segments were ridiculous, like the 'Transformer' intro, some were outright emberassing, like Wheldon's baby pitstop or the announcer's nicknames (Action Thackston, Roulette Aroute etc.). In general I felt that the coverage was dumbed down to an extremely young or extremely dumb audience.


You must be kidding, this was INFINITELY better than last year. For once, in who knows how long, we got to see a half hour BEFORE the race through a half hour AFTER the race.

Last year folks were bitchin' that there wasn't enough emphasis on the personalities, i.e. the drivers and now you are taking exception to the Baby Wheldon Pit Stop.

Sign me confused.

Gary

[jimispeed]

there was too much of Jack Arute and everything he said was extremely cheesy.


Any Jack Arute is too much Jack Arute. IMO he's terrible!! The interview with Danica was all for hype. It would have been better if she had smacked him around for asking stupid questions!!

Jack Arute is the weakest link in the chain IMO, so showing him that much in the race as an analyst is kind of annoying for me. Maybe it's just more of him not being my preference of commentator. His play on words sometimes is pitiful!

[disko]

Agree, Jack is the weakest link this year.

I think vs. needs to realize that their audience (300,000) is dedicated IRL fans. We're not dolts, which jack seems like hes announcing to.

This Pit Strategist title is a joke. If so, tell me why your going up or down on tire pressures, changing the wing angle, short pitting, etc. Then go back and see why it worked or didn;t work, and then what they are going to do about it. At the end of the race, go through the strategy and debrief. GET TECHNICAL! WE'LL GET IT.

[garyshell]

Agree, Jack is the weakest link this year.

I think vs. needs to realize that their audience (300,000) is dedicated IRL fans. We're not dolts, which jack seems like hes announcing to.

This Pit Strategist title is a joke. If so, tell me why your going up or down on tire pressures, changing the wing angle, short pitting, etc. Then go back and see why it worked or didn;t work, and then what they are going to do about it. At the end of the race, go through the strategy and debrief. GET TECHNICAL! WE'LL GET IT.


When they first introduced Jack's new role, I thought that was exactly what we were about to get. I thought COOL now we get to hear a bit more about the "chess match" aspects. But sadly no, we got the same old Jack. <sigh>

Gary

[Toymaker]

Imagine if they had this type of broadcast on ABC just how many new IndyCar fans that there would be. Tell them to do the whole season this way or don't give them the crown jewel!

[Chamoo]

Imagine if they had this type of broadcast on ABC just how many new IndyCar fans that there would be. Tell them to do the whole season this way or don't give them the crown jewel!

Well, let's hope they take some hints from Versus for the 5 ABC races and it ups the viewership because it sounds like they had a tough time with St. Petes. Check the blog for details of the rumored low numbers.

[Mark in Oshawa]

I didn't see the race, but any broadcast with that idiot Arute has one strike against it.....

I would have to say that I wont miss the ESPN/ABC coverage at all, but keeping Arute around is painful.

I wish they had TK in the booth. THAT would wallpaper over a lot of cracks in any coverage, but from what I have read, and heard that VS was doing a good job on the visuals. THAT is a good start....