Really hate Star Sports.
written: 9:58 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 30, 2008
And oh my god Del Potro got bagelled by Nalbandian in the second set after a 4-6 (3-6?) loss in the first and of course I didn't get to see it. Poor Del Potro, and Simon lost to Roddick. THIS IS SO SAD. It's even worse that I didn't get to see ANY OF IT. Ugh.
Anyway, I'm annoyed enough to spend ten minutes writing an email to Star Sports. I was restraining myself tremendously and I think I sounded quite polite. Well, until the last part anyway when I couldn't take it anymore.
To whom it may concern:
I write to bring your attention to a major and, quite frankly,
unexpected disappointment I have encountered while attempting to
follow the BNP Paribas Masters tennis tournament on your channel.
While I was very pleased to discover that your channel was covering
the event, the actual coverage over the past couple of days has left a
lot to be desired.
Just last night I was hoping to catch the Roger Federer v Robin
Soderling match live. It was scheduled to start at 3 AM Singapore time
(which was 8 PM Paris time), but when I turned on my television at 3
AM., I discovered that your channel was broadcasting some pre-taped
golf programme instead. To my further aggravation, I discovered, too,
that the live broadcast of the Paris tournament was not slated to
start until 4 AM. By 4 AM, Federer had already played 3/4 of his match
and was about twenty minutes away from winning. While some may say
twenty minutes is better than nothing, that is not the case for
someone who subscribed to Star Sports and other sports channels that
come with the Singapore cable package solely for the purpose of
watching tennis, in particular Roger Federer. I do not understand the
logic, the reason, behind broadcasting a pre-taped programme when
there is a live match going on from a tournament that you have already
committed yourself to broadcasting.
Not only that, are you aware that matches in Paris start at 6 PM
Singapore time (11 AM Paris time), and that by the time the live
broadcast starts, half the day of the tournament is already over? This
means viewers are robbed of the chance to watch top-seeded players
play, including Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic, not to mention Andy
Roddick, Gilles Simon, Juan Martin Del Potro. Nadal's first match was
not broadcast, and neither was Djokovic's. Also, for some reason that
I obviously don't understand, the broadcast of today's matches is
scheduled to start at 11.30 PM. Considering Federer's match is the
last of the morning session and is probably going to end before that,
I'm not sure what you're hoping to show your viewers at that time.
Sure there might be something going on on Court 1, but why broadcast
Court 1 when you can broadcast Federer? Additionally, if the schedule
for tonight doesn't change, you are apparently broadcasting Paris from
11.30 PM to 12 AM. May I know what is the point of broadcasting half
an hour of tennis (assuming there's anything to broadcast) when a
tennis match will definitely not end in 30 minutes? What is the point
of broadcasting an incomplete tennis match, especially when you're
apparently committed to live broadcast of the event? Pray tell, too,
what the logic is in showing "Nokia Football Crazy" twice within a
5-hour time frame. Why do that when, I repeat, there is a live tennis
match going on?
To make things even worse, I was looking forward, once again, to your
"same day telecast" of the tournament this afternoon at 12. To my
absolute shock, at 12 noon I turned on the TV and found myself looking
at some netball tournament, and conveniently your schedule was
changed. The absence of any repeat broadcast of the matches of a
tournament that you have exclusive broadcast rights, at least in my
country, to which you are ostensibly committed to covering, is just
utterly inexplicable and it leaves me deeply annoyed. The worst part
is, I was actually glad at first that Star Sports was broadcasting BNP
Paribas; after a horrible experience I had with Eurosport's broadcast
of the Basel ATP tournament, I thought Star Sports would be a good
change. But it turned out Star Sports is actually worse. Sure,
Eurosport didn't broadcast the semi-final and the final matches of
that tournament live, but at least they broadcast the first few
matches live and had repeat telecast of all matches, including the
semi and the final. But it appears that Star Sports isn't going to
repeat any of the matches that it failed to broadcast live for
whatever reasons that I'm frankly not interested in, and neither is
Star Sports going to wake up and schedule the BNP tournament as it's
actually happening. Even if you did not know what time the matches are
scheduled to start, surely you can change your daily programming
according to the order of play as they are released daily which are
readily online (http://www.atptennis.com; it's on the home page), the
same way you conveniently shelved the "same day telecast" of the
tournament this morning for netball.
Star Sports' coverage of BNP Paribas is so far the worst coverage of a
tennis tournament I've seen yet. I honestly thought nothing could get
any worse than Eurosport, so congratulations for proving me wrong. It
scares me to know you're broadcasting the Shanghai Tennis Masters Cup
too, which is the last ATP tournament of the year and it features the
top 8 tennis players in the world. I suppose I should brace myself for
similar treatment of the tournament; quite clearly you do not regard
an ATP tournament very highly on your priority programming list. May I
suggest, then, that you don't bother at all? Leave it to another
sports channel that can; clearly, Star Sports is not that channel.
[Yelen]
Singapore
Bleah.
before sunrise // before sunset
Previously:
- - Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2017
I'm moving. - Sunday, Jul. 11, 2010
In all honesty - Tuesday, Jul. 06, 2010
What I want for my birthday... - Sunday, Jul. 04, 2010
On Roger's behalf. - Friday, Jul. 02, 2010