August 2008 »

The first Olympic soccer game I caught was Belgium’s upset of Italy on MSNBC and I pretty much lost all hope of getting decent soccer coverage. ABC, who despite employing the excreable Dave O’Brien, has at least figured out Rule #1 of Televised Soccer: No Commercial Breaks. Except at halftime.

But MSNBC saw fit to cut to commercial in the 89th minute (after going to commercial about every ten minutes during the game). Rage! Even more so considering they were showing the game on tape delay so they could have picked the game back up right where they left off, but nooooo. When we came back, we were well into stoppage time with only a minute left to play.

Continue reading... »

Someone should have warned me about the dreck that is MSNBC Olympic Update, particularly the massive incompetence of Tiki Barber and Jenna Wolfe.

Their banter is horribly stilted, neither can read off a teleprompter smoothly, and they can’t even pronounce the athletes’ names correctly!

Continue reading... »