Rembrant Brown had a great blow-by-blow of a day with Mr Hanson and the Red Zone team that validates everything said so far in this thread:
http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8631131/watching-day-nfl-games-redzone-studio I have given up on the NFL for a multitude of reasons. A couple years ago, I was at my brother-in-law's house on a Sunday. He had DirecTV, and it was a free preview week, which meant access to the DTV RZ channel. I figured I'd watch for a little bit. Three hours later, I was still in the same spot, my ADHD-addled brain completely absorbed by a sport I no longer cared about. On Sun, Dec 2, 2012 at 9:55 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > I am in my second season without NFL Sunday Ticket, which I thought would be > my biggest regret at having to ditch the mini-dish. There have been a few > dark moments (mostly when I can't watch a Ram game, or the stupid Raiders > force a meaningless game and make us in NoCal miss a better AFC game). But > it has not been nearly as bad as I feared, mostly because of the RedZone > channel. I did not watch the DirecTV version that much, but the NFL Network > version seems to me to be much better. It does a lot more than just show > action from the opponent's 20 yard line and in - you can see a lot of the > meaningful action in most games, and the "1:00 pm slot" (that is, the second > game) often allows extensive viewing of the prime games because there are > rarely more than 4 and sometimes only 2. > > It is so easy to throw rocks at sports broadcasters, that I should give > props to Scott Hanson who I find to be just about perfect in his role as > host. He is excited and passionate about the action in the games, without > giving way to mere hype. He gets a kick out of the little things (today he > had fun showing us someone, maybe Charlie Batch(?) throw a ball threw the > endzone that landed right center in the parabolic mike) without turning into > a snarky ESPN guy or dufus local sportscaster. He really is like a really > knowledgeable, smart friend who is watching all of the games simultaneously > and takes us to the most interesting parts of the best games. More > precisely, it is like, and often even better than, having the NFL Sunday > Ticket and being able to switch around among all of the games - better > because when you do it yourself at home you never know what you are missing > in the other games. > > I have gotten to the point that I almost miss him when I instead watch all > of one game. Today the Rams played - and BEAT(!) the 49ers so I watched all > of that during the early game, which went into OT so I missed the most > compelling part of RedZone, which is the interval when the morning games > enter the last 4 minutes or so of the 4th quarter. But I did watch all of > the afternoon game on RedZone - catching at one point what I have come to > learn is a prototypical RZ moment - two teams scoring touchdowns live > simultaneously on the split screen. And Hanson does such a good job with the > transitions back and forth from games that the viewer is not just watching > disconnected highlights, but has enough of a feel for how each has developed > that it really is like watching both games at the same time. Sometimes it > fizzles - I think last week there were almost no exciting finishes, but > other times it is just riveting; I think 2 or 3 weeks ago there were like 4 > games coming down to the final possession in the final seconds, and 2 or 3 > went into OT. Hanson was in football heaven - and I have to admit, so was I. > > What is most surprising to me is that RZ is produced by the NFL Network - > since they are so consistently and extraordinarily awful with their Thursday > night broadcasts of games (and their pregame show may actually be worse than > ESPN's). How can the same people do one so well and the other so, so, bad? -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
