Upon skimming the replay of the game yesterday, I noticed the game was a Fox Sports production, not ESPN. I thought ACCN was exclusively ESPN. Can someone explain this?
Additionally, I enjoyed it way more than ESPN. I thought the commentators did a phenomenal job capturing the intensity of the game while not sounding biased towards a certain team one time (e.g. the two morons on the call for the Miami game). The cutaways to Skipper after every touchdown, focusing on the crowd during both instances of Enter Sandman, the different camera angles, etc.
Great job, Fox Sports. That was an excellent production.
Forums:
DISCLAIMER: Forum topics may not have been written or edited by The Key Play staff.
Comments
I noticed that the announcers seemed genuinely excited for both teams when they made big plays. It was a bit refreshing compared to how bad some of the other crews are.
I noticed the regional networks tend to get more into the game overall instead of trying to push a narrative or focus on things outside of the actual game action.
Or maybe that's just "everyone not under the ESPN umbrella."
I don't know if it's a regional vs. national thing. I just tend to enjoy Fox's production over ESPN when it comes to sports. The only redeemable program on ESPN anymore is SportsCenter SVP. Of course FS1 has Skip Bayless who is an absolute moron, but, other than that, they do pretty well.
ESPN still sublicenses some ACC games out to Fox for regional sports networks. Raycom's involved with that somehow.
macraw83 and I went over it on the thread about when/where to see the URI and UNC games:
https://www.thekeyplay.com/content/2019/october/7/rhode-island-and-unc-g...
https://www.thekeyplay.com/comment/878176#comment-878176
Further, ACCN had nothing to do with the game yesterday. However, whenever ESPN lists the RSN games, they list them as ACCNX, which is basically the ESPN3 of the ACC Network. That's because they do offer them for streaming wherever the games are not available elsewhere. It's actually very rare for those games to show up on the ESPN app, because you can usually stream them through the regional sports app (in theory).
I'm not going to pretend to know the pecking order of how games are assigned but this one was assigned to the Fox RSNs, which I think Disney bought in the acquisition of 21st Century Fox, and then had to re-sell to satisfy federal requirements. I watched the game on Fox Sports Florida.
Had nothing to do with Disney buying Fox. The ACC has had this RSN deal since at least 2011.
I don't think it's a deal between the ACC and the RSNs, but rather between ESPN and the RSNs. ESPN sells a few games to them when they have more inventory than they know what to do with. This week they had ACCN fully booked, so they sold our game to the RSNs, presumably for more cash than they would've gotten from selling ads on ACCNX.
Edit: I was wrong, saw you post this below: https://mattsarzsports.blogspot.com/2019/05/notes-on-early-season-acc-ab...
Disney buying 21st Century Fox is why Sinclair now owns the RSNs. I suspect Disney would have preferred to keep them to further control the marketplace. But yes, ACC still has a contract to fulfill, now with Sinclair.
https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/sinclair-closes-deal-for-disney-rsns
The point was that the current ownership doesn't matter. The games were being produced with Fox graphics and music and primarily showing up on Fox Sports Net channels since 2011 or earlier.
Yes, they have been doing that since 2011 as you pointed out and linked. And there is a contract to continue to do that thru the mid 2020's.
To rewind, the OP was curious why it this game was a Fox production. But for the federal requirement for Disney to sell the RSNs, Disney would have been free to modify/maintain/produce the content of the RSNs as they saw fit. The fact that Disney is not the owner, as they intended to be when they bought 21st Century Fox, is the only reason why there is still a contract that must be fulfilled.
I agree with this 100%. Not only did the announcers capture the excitement of the game (my favorite was his voice cracking after QPII stuck it in at the end), but I was also impressed with their accuracy and knowledge. I don't recall any mispronounced names and they also brought up something relevant, in real-time, that was so contextual that I can't imagine how they could have known... I can't even remember what it was now. Anyway - very well done imho.
I thought it was weird too, but was happy Fox Sports was showing the game. Fox Sports has really grown over the years and provides nice competition with ESPN. I remember watching a Pac12 game a few years ago and really enjoyed the quality of broadcasting on Fox Sports.
Found some explanation: https://mattsarzsports.blogspot.com/2019/05/notes-on-early-season-acc-ab...
Short version: The RSN deal is going to last at least through 2026-2027, left over from the media rights extension when Pitt and Syracuse joined. Those games are still produced by Raycom.
It was on Fox Sports Carolinas for me. Shout out to YouTubeTV for being an amazing cord cutting experience so far.
Being better than ACCN/ESPN announcers is a low bar to pass.
Sure, but it's OUR low bar.
Was a nice change of pace.
Only flub I remember is, "and the punt take a North Carolina...[ball bounces in VTs favor]... player farther down the field."
Nah they mixed up Hazleton and Turner a few times
Agreed. Yes they did. Neutral and very excited to be there.
I would love to get a Gus Johnson called game. He is the Sean McDonough of Fox Sports. If you haven't heard his reaction to the Boomer Schooner flip yesterday, do yourself a favor and watch this clip. Possibly the best sports call ever:
Gus Johnson is my favorite non virginia tech related thing in college football. I'll watch some garbage big 12 or 10 games just because he's on the call.
I saw a video on Twitter taken by a fan at the game. He said "oh my god, the humanity!" It was absolutely hysterical and will be memed into eternity the next time OU loses.
Downside: watching local commercials was rough
who cares...we won the damn game
Good insight.
I thought, like usual, they would begin the broadcast after/during Enter Sandman. Then I saw UNC running onto the field and they said Mack wanted his team to experience it...seemed bizarre at the time.
How did it look at the game?
I was actually surprised at how much of Sandman made it into the broadcast. Usually if we're not one of the top tier slots (ABC or ESPN 3:30 or later), any coverage of the entrance is covered up by the broadcast music. I've chalked that up to music fees, where the farm team production companies don't have the budget to pay Metallica. But the broadcast music cut off halfway through, and a good chunk of the song could be heard fairly clearly on TV.
I too, was surprised by that. You could even hear the stadium singing over the broadcast crew.
First time in awhile I can recall not having many issues with the announcers...there was a stretch in the first quarter (I believe) where they kept putting up a stupid graphic with an angle from the practice field and cutting back to play right at the snap. Really the only thing I recall that drove me nuts.
I live in Bethesda, MD and the game was cast locally on NBC Sports Washington.
Because there is no Fox RSN covering the mid Atlantic.
On a related note, curious if anyone had a similar experience. I have YouTubeTV, and the regional Fox Sports channels I get didn't carry the game. So I went to the ESPN app and logged on with my YouTubeTV credentials and the game was blacked out in my area. Local over the air channels didn't carry it anywhere. Why would ESPN app black out the game if I couldn't get it another way? Hoping someone knows more about this than me can shed some light on this. Maybe this game was an anomaly, it was one I really would have liked to watch live.
It was probably broadcast in your area on a regional network that YTTV doesn't offer. There were others that weren't "Fox Sports" channels. The full list was available here.
Yeah I looked at that list. While they aren't all Fox, they seem to all be regional cable networks, not sure how I could get any of those in my area. My dad has an antenna and he checked all of the OTA stations (we're in NE Tenn) and couldn't find it. I don't know, I guess I'm just bitching because this was a game worth watching and I bought YTTV just to watch football this year and couldn't find it.
I wonder if you were too close to the VA or NC border, and ESPN assumed you were within the NBC Sports Washington region (seems to include all of VA and portions of eastern NC) or the Fox Sports South region (includes all of NC). In any case, that sucks.
I'm in Mississippi and have Hulu live and all 3 of the Fox Sports (south, southeast) were playing the TCU game. I had to log into the ESPN website to watch the game live.
It was regional Fox coverage. Miss isn't in the ACC footprint. And what Hulu picks up on-line isn't going to be micro-regional like the channels that showed the game.
What was totally confusing about the whole thing was the guide on Hulu said that the VT - UNC game was going to be on one of those channels but not airing until 5pm. It was just really weird.
For YouTubeTV subscribers:
Set up YouTube TV to automatically record all VT football games (hell, you can record every single football game that is available if you really want to with the unlimited DVR). So, if it is available in your area on any channel whatsoever, it will record it and you can watch it from the beginning. As a bonus, this also puts it at the top of the "Top Picks For You" section of the Home screen of the app, so it is right there when you open it and you do not have to go searching for it.
Also, I find it is much easier to see what games are available to watch each Saturday by starting on the Home screen, scrolling down to the Sports section, selecting/tapping "Football", then scrolling down to the Leagues section and picking "NCAA Football". From there pick the "Schedule" tab and it will list all of the games and tell you the network they are on or if the are unavailable. From that screen you just pick whichever game you want to watch. Makes it really easy to switch back and forth between games as well.
My YTTV didn't record it since it wasn't included on any channel in my home area, but I could have streamed it on WatchESPN had I been home. Also, I was irritated to learn about a limitation of the "cloud DVR" service yesterday. I'm visiting from the west coast and we drove back to my Dad's house yesterday after the game on Saturday. I went to watch yesterday's NASCAR race from the beginning when we got back about an hour after it started and found that the recording was geographically restricted to the region covered by my specific NBC affiliate, even though I was able to stream it live on my Dad's local NBC affiliate. I would imagine the same behavior would happen for all the broadcast networks.
Speaking of ACCN
Mark Richt had a heart attack this morning...