Tell me, what is the point of buying the licensing rights or whatever to broadcast a sporting event (say, tennis) only to not broadcast any matches during the appointed times? Or preempt a portion of a match to play high school basketball highlights? High school basketball?! Highlights?!?!?! Or, you know, bass fishing. Look, I know there are people in the world who live and die by fishing but come on, FSN (or in some areas, FS-SW)! Don't buy the rights to the programming if showing 45 minutes more of water, fish and/or amateur highlights is a higher priority than live QUARTERFINAL tennis! It's ridiculous!
True story:
Live tennis is scheduled for 9 p.m. central on FSN and some bright son-of-a-b*tch decides to allow bass fishing to overrun their timeslot. The live tennis is a quarterfinal match. The quarters, damn it! Featuring Federer and Verdasco (he of Australian Open semi-final fame). Point of mention: the match turned out to be rather anticlimatic and boring but that's beside the point, FSN couldn't have known that. Getting back to it: I'm pissed, tired of waiting, and so take to the internet for a streaming feed. Having found one, I enjoy the match on my awesome, new widescreen computer screen. Sometime around 10:30 I notice FSN has finally broadcasted the match but do I switch off my computer? Hell to the NO. See, this is how viewership dies and fans disappear, crap scheduling like this.
Don't even get me started on how they voided Nadal's match entirely last night. Nadal, the No. 1 tennis player in the world!!! They could play the rare women's match that night -- Azarenka vs Safina, but not Nadal's highly anticipated match. Like, what the f**k?! As a serious Nadal fan my gasket, she was a-blown! Instead, guess what FSN graced their viewing audience with? A doc on a former hockey player. O-kaaaaay. I don't have problems with documentaries on players, not even when its based on sports I couldn't care a whiff about. What does light my fuse is live tennis being ignored in favor of a doc the channel has probably been running for the last year! This whole situation wouldn't suck so much if FSN weren't the only channel licensed to broadcast tennis for at least this week. There's no alternative but sreaming feeds; thank god for streaming feeds! That's how I was able to watch my Nadal survive a fourth round scare and write this awesome post.
Don't even get me started on how they voided Nadal's match entirely last night. Nadal, the No. 1 tennis player in the world!!! They could play the rare women's match that night -- Azarenka vs Safina, but not Nadal's highly anticipated match. Like, what the f**k?! As a serious Nadal fan my gasket, she was a-blown! Instead, guess what FSN graced their viewing audience with? A doc on a former hockey player. O-kaaaaay. I don't have problems with documentaries on players, not even when its based on sports I couldn't care a whiff about. What does light my fuse is live tennis being ignored in favor of a doc the channel has probably been running for the last year! This whole situation wouldn't suck so much if FSN weren't the only channel licensed to broadcast tennis for at least this week. There's no alternative but sreaming feeds; thank god for streaming feeds! That's how I was able to watch my Nadal survive a fourth round scare and write this awesome post.
Also, what the hell is up with the television scheduling of women's tennis in general? It's rare to catch a WTA match and they killed any early round viewings all together. It's got my mom, a big tennis fan, fit to be tied. I charge sexism. Sure, the women's game sucks right now but there was a time in the '90's when the men's game wasn't so hot either and no one was dodging their matches... or saying they don't deserve their pay for that matter. It's something else that when the men's game has a dip everyone freaks but cautions that highs and lows are normal. However, let the women's game suffer for a stretch and not only does everyone freak out but the real misogynist-*ssholes come out to play.
"The women's game has always been poor," they chortle. "This is why they don't deserve equal prize money."
Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-f**k you!
"The women's game has always been poor," they chortle. "This is why they don't deserve equal prize money."
Blah, blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-blah, blah-f**k you!
There's a power vacuum in the WTA, it happens, suck it! Trust me, the men's game was no fun for some people (namely me) when Federer was dominating and every other player was too crap or too puss to be anything more than bone-meal in his trough. I'm not particularly pleased with what's happening at the very top of women's tennis but I know they'll pull it out because that's what happens in tennis and in sports.
That's all I got.
/tirade
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