In Defense of Fox

Not many defenders of Fox after their Open coverage, but Shackelford offers a modified limited hangout in defense of the Fox, though on a portion of the coverage I'm guessing none of you saw:

This year's U.S. Open featured three streams. As the network broadcast struggled to keep

up with live golf or embed innovative touches, the streaming options ofFeatured Group, Featured Hole and 360 largely delivered on Fox's pledge to deliver fresh twists on golf coverage, with only the 360 lacking a little clarity in what it was trying to accomplish. 

The difficulty of the network to match the streaming's use of fun stuff was predictable to longtime TV folks who warned that certain graphics and effects would be too difficult to incorporate into a network broadcast that is trying to show many players and pay bills too. But when the focus is on two holes, one group or one topic, the digital feeds deliver a more satisfying and up-to-the-minute experience.

Per Shack, Fox used more techie bells and whistles on the streaming coverage, and he gives us several screen shot examples, such as this:

That looks much like graphics I've seen on Golf Channel's Euro Tour coverage, but for some reason not on PGA Tour broadcasts.  But we've seen different iterations of this:

 And this...

I think these are all valuable if used in the right circumstances, and their limited use on the flagship broadcast is curious....

And, again per Geoff, there was personal growth during this process:

The first day of the digital coverage was rocky and even entertaining in a Best In Show way. The Featured Group's Tim Brando and Mark Brooks sounded like two Fred Willard'stalking over each other, but by round three they and Natalie Gulbis had meshed to deliver enjoyable, insightful and opinionated analysis. Buddy Marucci sounded like he was lost the entire time. On the Featured Hole coverage, Shane Bacon brought a confident but relaxed presence lacking in May's Four-Ball telecast, while folks like Debbie Doniger, Morgan Pressel and Joe Ogilvie all stood out with the kind of candor and energy that was lacking on big Fox. Robert Lusetich should have been used more to break up Fox's overuse of players and under-reliance on reporters. 

Announcers aside, the storytelling really worked best because of the bells and whistles that the different feeds had time to employ. Below are a few screen grabs from the week starting with Fox's best contribution to golf coverage, the use of small graphics to show you some of the key numbers golfers and their caddies faced.

I'm glad Geoff posted this because I certainly didn't watch much streaming coverage, but I'm struggling with where he sees this going:

Could this mean that the entire concept of trying to cover a golf tournament must be re-thought? We hear all of the time how golfers just want to see shots like the CBS Chirkinian days and show as many players as possible, etc. Yet for serious golf fans, the European Tour feeds and Australian coverage often resonate because they focus on a few groups and incorporate more course graphics that allow us to follow the anatomy of a round.

Fox's digital offerings proved to be more compelling watching an elite group work their way around Chambers Bay or to seeing how the field tackled one hole while the network tried to tell so many different stories.

I'm gonna go with No, Geoff.  

Here's the thing, you can roughly break the broadcast down into two separate broadcasts, Thursday-Friday and the weekend.  The importance of streaming is to show things that the broadcast can't capture, whether it's due to a limited broadcast window (though Fox's wasn't very limited) or because there's too much happening in too many locations on the course.  

But by Saturday and especially Sunday the field is seeded with the leaders going last, and we're all focused on who is going to win the darn thing...  In fact, by a Sunday they're focused on a small number of groups, in the case of the Open it was really two groups.  Obviously there were guys out ahead that made runs and got picked up, and they'll always show a guy at +12 holing out from the fairway, but they had [plenty of time to use their wizbang graphics to their heart's content.

Additionally, for major sporting events we want to be be watching the same broadcast.  When Greg Norman says something particularly egocentric, I want to be able to laugh at with the boys the next  day or around the water cooler on Monday morning (for the record, there's actually no water cooler at Unplayable Lies world HQ).  Given their liberal use of tape, there's little reason to not show anything worth seeing on the network feed.

Anybody disagree?