Do you go to the University of Florida? Are you a Gator fan? Do you like basketball? If you answered yes to any of the three previous questions, there’s a good chance you watched the Final Four game on Saturday against UConn.
But the real question is: which version did you watch?
According to the NCAA, Turner Sports and CBS experimented with airing two additional telecasts of both NCAA semifinals. Along with the main coverage on TBS, there were separate versions on TNT and truTV with different announcing crews connected to each school.
The Florida telecast was played on TNT while the UConn version was aired on truTV simultaneously. The same went for the Kentucky vs. Wisconsin game. This basically means that if you were watching TNT, you received Gator-specific coverage. There were broadcasters hired to appeal to Gator fans, a Gator halftime show, custom music and graphics all geared toward the Gator team (and the opposite goes for truTV with UConn).
Even as the last seconds ticked away, instead of hearing announcers cheer for UConn’s big win, you heard a list of the great accomplishments the Gators made throughout the season and what lies next for the players.
This feature was also available on your computers. On the NCAA website, before you were able to access the live coverage, a link prompted you to “choose your team” with either a Gator or a Huskie symbol, and then proceeded to give you the tailored coverage for that channel.
If you were completely oblivious to these new ‘hometown’ live broadcasts like I was, then you were probably thinking that media was just downright rooting for the first-seed Gators. But now that we know, what does this mean for the future of media?
Not only does this prove how much our communications outlets have evolved over time, but it also paves the way for a new type of broadcasting. What’s to say that they don’t start providing the same features for professional sports? What about reality contest shows where TV could give the option to view which confessionals or backstage moments you’d prefer to see based on the contestant?
We already know that advertising has been trying out a similar feature. Hulu has created an “ad selector” that asks “which ad experience would you prefer” and lets you click on a video for certain ads based on which information you would rather absorb (AKA a lesser of two evils.)
Via: metacafe.com
Whether the new ad selector is actually working is up for plenty of debate, but I feel confident that the way the Final Four was covered has the potential to change sports viewing in America as we know it.
What I’m unsure of, however, is whether it’s for the better or worse. Some could make the argument that it’s biased news, or that it wastes money and program time by airing the same game on different channels. Others could embrace the new team-specific coverage and enjoy listening to broadcasters root for their team. Or worse yet, it could just confuse viewers who aren’t aware of this type of reporting at all, which was apparent during the Final Four games.
Either way I’m interested to see if this hometown coverage is repeated in the future, and if it expands to other facets of television. And I sure am glad that Salty had on TNT’s coverage on Saturday… although it didn’t make the loss any prettier.
Featured photo courtesy of: Palm Beach Post
