Thanks, Universal Sports! | Golden Skate

Thanks, Universal Sports!

aemeraldrainc

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2004
I'm gonna be a total copycat and start a thread to congratulate Universal Sports as well.
(I should have thought of it earlier.)
I really think they did an amazing job covering as much as they did. We didn't only get the final group, but at least the last 2 groups and sometimes even a couple from the 2nd group.
After being worried about getting our figure skating coverage slashed in the US, I think Uni Sports more than stepped up to it to fill the void.
Someone must really like figure skating in there.
And adding Tara Lipinski and Judy Blumberg to the commentator team was an added bonus. I really like Tara as a commentator. A fresh perceptive.
And I think the main reason the coverage was not live was because they wanted to make it "prime time" if you will.
Not a bad idea, I think.

What does everyone else think?
 
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brightphoton

Medalist
Joined
Jan 23, 2009
Universal Sports is a sports channel. It's their job to cover important sporting events like Worlds. Plus, they had lots of advertising dollars.

I don't like Tara's commentary. She's always telling us how much of a *great* and *better* competitor she was than the skaters she's watching. During Miki's long, she mentioned that Miki should have included a triple-triple because Yuna was competing and Yuna had a triple-triple. "When **I** was competing against Michelle, **I** increased my technical elements because I **knew** Michelle was so good." Tara, you won the Olympics when you were 12, cried about your hips, and then were never heard from again. Furthermore, Miki has backloaded her program, so that's her increased technical difficulty.

On the other hand, better Tara than Scott Hamilton.
 

aemeraldrainc

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2004
Did Tara say that during Miki's free skate or short program?
I must have missed it because I don't remember that at all.


*Nevermind. I found it.*
 
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aemeraldrainc

Final Flight
Joined
Oct 31, 2004
When ABC/ESPN stopped covering the Grand Prix/Worlds, wasn't lack of coverage an issue?
Did another network inmediately take ABC's place?
I think I remember something about advertisers being hard to find or deals that couldn't be reached.
Details are hazy, but for a while, it looked like the US was gonna have to do without, at least, Grand Prix coverage indefinitely.
If someone could refresh my memory of what actually happened, I would appreciate it.

Anyways, my point was that I'm glad Universal Sports covered as much as they did because coverage could have easily been worse.
I always hear about how lucky fans in other countries are just to get the top skaters and maybe their countries' entries and sometimes not even all of the final groups.
US also covered the medal ceremonies (at least for dance and ladies) and I hadn't seen that in a while.

Just saying.
 

brightphoton

Medalist
Joined
Jan 23, 2009
Oh, I didn't realize it was difficult to get figure skating covered on television. I suppose I take it for granted that I can turn on my TV and see figure skating on whenever Worlds is on x.x
 
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