Track & Field Channel

[runtoo]

OK, lets just say our dream comes true and we get a track & field channel (TFN?). Who would be your choice(s) for the Prime Time Anchor?

[runtoo]

Re: Track & Field Channel

ooops,I thought my post didn't take...

[BillVol]

Re: Track & Field Channel

Tom Hammond...NOT! Marty Liquori, Larry Rawson would be good. Verne Lundquist is not bad at track. Dwight is always very good. Carol Lewis, too.

[runtoo]

Re: Track & Field Channel

The guy that anchored the coverage of the L.A. Marathon this year and used to have a show on cable covering road races... I'm drawing a complete blank... What is his name??

Re: Track & Field Channel

All the T&F staff guys would do a good job, so why select one over the other.

Bob Hersh would be nice, but we might want to save him for play by play....

Since I'm in Philadelphia, I caught Vicki Huber do a two hour recap on the Friday night of the Penn Relays.

She had a nice camera presence and has the feel for track and field.

By the way, she just won the recent Race Against Breast Cancer race here in Philadelphia.

[jsquire]

Re: Track & Field Channel

>Tom Hammond...NOT! Marty Liquori, Larry Rawson
>would be good. Verne Lundquist is not bad at
>track. Dwight is always very good. Carol Lewis,
>too.

Most track announcers on North American TV should not be allowed to have a microphone. There are exceptions, but we're stuck with a bad group. Couldn't we import someone from the BBC, or an Aussie or a Kiwi?

What about content? I'm sure our fantasy channel would broadcast infomercials about 12 hours a day, but what else? A movie a week, like on ESPN classic (there are TONS at www.runningmovies.com), some old footage too. With a lot of reruns, you might actually fill up a whole day -- especially if you got a Eurosport feed for the non-Golden League meets.

[gh]

Re: Track & Field Channel

>All the T&F staff guys would do a good job, so
>why select one over the other.>>

Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I've got to tell you, doing TV is no easy task. I can only say this by inference, becuase the closest I've come is doing voice-overs for IAAF videos, but after thousands of hours behind a mike in stadiums, it's not remotely the same thing. I have admiration for most of the people who do anything on TV, even the mediocre ones.

Re: Track & Field Channel

I always thought that Vic Holcheck (sp?) sounded great on the old 800-948-7225. Does he still do radio? He seems like he'd be a great TV anouncer.

[magpie]

Re: Track & Field Channel

>>Tom Hammond...NOT! Marty Liquori, Larry
>Rawson
>would be good. Verne Lundquist is not
>bad at
>track. Dwight is always very good.
>Carol Lewis,
>too.

Most track announcers on
>North American TV should not be allowed to have
>a microphone. There are exceptions, but we're
>stuck with a bad group. Couldn't we import
>someone from the BBC, or an Aussie or a
>Kiwi?

exactly.

[BBCAC Alum]

Re: Track & Field Channel

Phil Ligget!

Re: Track & Field Channel

kind of surprising OLN doesn't do more running related material...

Lawson does a nice job...

personally, I think it's the way t&f gets packaged by espn and nbc...

[bkotch]

Re: Track & Field Channel

Didn't OLN have the Golden League meets a few years ago when ESPN elected not to carry them? I'm thinking it was back around 1998, 1999 or 2000. At the time, my cable provider din't carry OLN, so I was out of luck.

Even with ESPN carrying the Golden League this year, OLN could have a great series with the GPI and GPII meets using the European television feed. Who has the connections to pitch it to them?

Or am I just dreaming?

[bkotch]

Re: Track & Field Channel

Come to think of it, it may have been Fox Sports World and not OLN . . .

Re: Track & Field Channel

I have always liked Tom Hammond. He is a very elegant play by play man, who doesn't say stupid things, unlike some other American broadcasters. I am surprised at the track community's dislike of Tom Hammond. This looks like "us track guys and no one else mentality" at it again.

[gh]

Re: Track & Field Channel

There's more than just the insider/outsider mentality at work here, IMHO. People are also shooting the messenger becuase they don't like the message. In this case, TV doesn't do a very good job, in general, or presenting a track meet so that a track nut likes it. We want nothing but action-action-action. Clearly, the networks feel (know?) they can't sell that, so they have to do it antoher way. But I digress...

I wasn't impressed with Hammond's early work on track, but I know from having talked with him that he works hard on his craft and has studied the sport quite a bit through the years and now does a very good job. You just have to appreciate the context in which he works (which isn't his choice).