Production Choices in Modern Sports Broadcasting

Hello, welcome to Pint size distant pod. This is where we go back through our archive and try to find you the very best bits that we can to help you on your journey through the Distant Pod archive. Every episode we've ever done still exists and they're all timeless. So if you want to head back to episode twenty three and have a listen or episode fourteen or episode one hundred and thirty seven . This should help you on the journey. In the episode description, it says where the clip is from this week. Go find that one wherever you listen to your podcasts and they'll help you on your journey through the Distant Pod archives or it might just be a little bit of a fun reminder of something that made you laugh in the first place. Here it is this week's Distant Pod P int size episode . I'll start by saying I've really enjoyed this World Cup. The game is right. I think the games have been good. I think the Tier two nations are catching up. There's been some lovely results for you know, really good performances about Uruguay and Portugal. Obviously Fiji have been the talk of the tournament. The coverage has been poor. I mean and there's friends of mine involved in it. T beo fair, the ones the people I like have done have done a decent job. Ugos that all right. Flat is good. Yeah. But the actual production is just bonkers. The studio set, which is in London, obviously, they've managed to cover a World Cup in one of the best countries in the world France. And conveyed absolutely none of the atmosphere , none of the of the passion of the fans or the players or the places , not a not a scentilla of the flavor of the locations, some of the some beautiful stadiums that I'll never mention . It's just mad. It's so clinical and so boring the coverage. Right. So this is they go back to the studio and this is after George Ford did what England should never got away from, but I said this on Twitter. It's not fun to watch. England's problem is, as I've said before , and this pissed a lot of people off. I don't think they also talk about wasted talent. I don't know, there's not a lot of talent in that side, right ? Not certainly not compared to like the Will Carlin England teams or the Chinese women will see John Ruker teams for . So what they should do is what they're good at, which is work on your set piece , don't give up too many points and when you get within thirty or forty yards just take your drop kicks, which they're really good at doing. George Woods, you know, and win games, you know, twelve , five, it doesn't matter. It's when they start to try and play Fiji rugby and they haven't got the personalities where it was all the wheels come off. So anyway, but what it isn't is it's not a glamorous part of the game drop kicking. Oh, very functional. Yes. They then go back and they're having a feature just on drop kicking now. They got Johnny there, obviously, drop kick England to World Cup. An immensely effective drop kick kickers. Absolutely. Fantastic one of the best kickers off a tea or out of his hand s a little time, right? If BT sports slash TNT sports, coverage of rugby sports, anything , it's that you can really, really use a studio these days to show people the ins and outs of Rubby Universe. Oh, the stuff with like when they had Jamie on there or when they had Broad way, you know, all that stuff was fantastic to watch and real eye opener. This was how we got Johnny here, the one of the principal exponents of the drop kick. How do you kick a drop go ? Well, the following four minutes and especially the first two and a half minutes it just blows your mind. Now use a little clip of it. Mike Ford really enjoying his boy success and of course Johnny is the best to talk us through the technique of the drop goal. Come on. This is your specialist subject. Well, yeah, I guess my entire life's working a couple of minutes here. So I think this is my own experience. There's many different ways of achieving this, but what I've come to understand is when you're kicking or performing any skill, you're delivering a message, you're communicating with the ball and that clarity of that message is so key. So the picture of your intention, first of all, mind wise, are you thinking about what you don't want to happen , you h knowope, it doesn't miss all this stuff, or is it the clear vision of what you want? But how this can be felt, it's really interesting if you come stand in me. This position that George was in as a kicker right here with my hands and my foot, you can feel how solid that is. Now if I, maintain this relationship, I'm in communication constantly. The ball knows what I want. But the danger is that when you are in doubt , when you're lost, maybe in through a little bit of anxiety or fear, you speed up, you get into survival mode. Survival says just get it done. And we're no longer in control of what we want to do. We start getting dominated by what we're seeing. We're just looking for reassurance. As a result, this position quickly becomes this position as we go to the target you can feel that message is gone . So what we think is you have to hit straight from here to the target where twelve o'clock is but when you do that you're alosing a message. So what we do is if you come one more time, you hit and you hit towards one o'clock and your whole body is delivering the message and it's so inevitable and it feels different. So when players talk about that feel, it's the communication of absolute intention is channelled out as reality . However, it does take a lot of work, physical merc techniques, sure, but the bigger work, mental, emotional, going against your old conditioning of like, will it ever happen for me? Do I deserve to have it? Am I worthy of it at me? Just into that sheer space of just do it. Be it, be engaged, be present, live it, love it, enjoy it, embrace it. It's a very different energy. We spoke about England in terms of how they were during the summer and talking about that energy shift into this fie andld maybe we're going to see that as a team, not just in George Ford, but I was reminded of Barry John saying to Gareth when Garatha, how do you want it? So do throw it or catch it. And someone said , I've got I've looked high and low this and I can't find it. They remember seeing a thing on BBC once there's Barry John was in a pub talking about rugby and obviously he was a prolific drop kicker his day. And then what's the skill to drop kicker? He said, Drop it and kick it . And there's obviously more to it than that, but there's also less to it than this . Right? The problem I had with it . I don't tell you how to do it at any point I was imagining myself the age of ten , watching the nineteen ninety one Rugby World Cup. You're a lot of seat you already come here. Watch this. Have a look at this. Yeah, yeah. Best drop kick every show and drop kick. I've got the official Gilbert nineteen ninety one Rugby World Cup ball. Love it and I have access to a back garden. Good ball . And so I'm watching this and I'm thinking brilliant. I'm about to find out how to do it properly because I sometimes get it right and I sometimes get it wrong , but this is going to be this is going to be the key to the kingdom. Yes. That kid, whoever that is, is just going to be sitting there holding his or her bowl for the rest of the afternoon, not knowing what to do. It doesn't explain it doesn't explain anything. I thought it was m onushrooms. I've said that I thought it was on mushrooms. I love this so much . He reminds me and this is in a good way, right? I love Aaron Rogers. Aaron Rogers is barking. We listen to him in interviews, the way he thinks about things and he goes on these retreats where he locks himself in a cave for four days in darkness and there's all this weird stuff and it's all about relationships and opening your mind to things. So Johnny starts talking there. But when you see All Rogers doing it, he's like long hair. He looksone some like the big moustache. He's got the wild eyes. He lives in the, you know, this is Johnny and always looks immaculate. He's a handsome man. He looks great in a jack. He's been great, you know, lovely blood. I'm sure he is. I said this, I was lovely blue. A fabulous player and I'm sure a lovely blow a fuck a bloody hell. He taught you absolutely zero about how to do a drop kick. When it's not about, you got to have a build a relationship. Whenever you give an inanimate object, the powers of reason, right? I got a problem with that. Okay. He's saying I, you know, if I can build a connection and get , you know, then I could I can I can project what did he say one point he projects his thoughts and turns over the reality and all this sort of stuff. Yeah. And then the ball will trust me. Make the ball won't trust you because the ball doesn't know you because the ball can't know anybody. So I'm taking on his logic. Okay, so the ball can trust you. My problem is we live in a multi ball era . Now , I'm not saying Johnny is promiscuous with balls . But there could be upwards of twenty five balls involved in his national rugby damage. Has he got to create a relationship with all of those balls orders the first one let's trust with his health the other balls he's alright. That's why I couldn't work out. He's under paimasized the ball , which is very weird. You saying that is fatuous, right? Does the ball? No, no, no, no, no, that's what I'm saying is the extrapolation of his life. Exactly. If you're saying, well, we don't be so dad to seven. Of course the ball is not going to talk to all the other balls. But if I was playing number seven against him, that's what I would say to him. That ball doesn't like you. If that ball is trusting him , why can't it go and talk to all the other bulls? Exactly. Yeah, tell me he's a good egg. He just personified a bowl. So very and you can just see Pug and Pug 's. Why is he doing Pugach's body when John can stand here? Which I'm not sure what Johnny's doing at that point. He doesn't know. And I don't think Pugach knows. No, no one knows Feels like they haven't heard What's Dalario's face? It's hilarious. The other disappointing thing I am imagining myself as a ten year old who just wants to be taught how to drop kick a ball properly. Yes. And then right at the end when Puga says, Go on there, Johnny, show us how it's done. You don't see it. No There's a tight shot on Johnny's body and that comedy sounded the ball goes, you know, the hilarious glass breaking effect followed by yeah the hammest eye rolling by Pugach e Red Worst acting I've ever seen. Dear or dear or dear which Saklive is not impressed by. It's a real shame though because this could have been absolutely fascinating, but I think that Johnny's too intense a person to just say, Well, listen, you know, you hold the ball at waist tighten, then you drop it and then how'd you hold it? What angle is the ball at? What part of the foot you use your where's the other foot going? Where's your head going? Where's the line of the crease? A lot of them use the line of the crease of the ball and angle that towards the post regardless of how your body is positioned. So Ben plays out of Sunday for the first time is sure it's really good. She's got a good passage. They should have put him there, right? His kick out of hand is okay, can't drop kick. So I was like, look at this, mate. I was like, I don't bother. Actually go make so much lunch. Yeah. Cause I still got my under fourteen's on Friday I now can,'t wait to go and get him to build a a relationship with ball. That's what they need to do. That'd be great. Give 'em all a ball each. So weird. But he's such I listened to that podcast where he talked to some more but yeah, yeah. He is, I mean all of the top level sports people are intense because they have to be . But he is he's unlike anyone else in terms of how intense he is. But he's overthought it all, hasn't he? He's overthought everything. And he's taken no joy out of playing the game, which is what I find bizarre. We'll talk about this in the in the dock later we'll throw just a throw forward. You gotta love playing there haven't you? You got to enjoy the actual process of playing the game to go through all the shit surely. Yeah, you have the World Cup final , two thousand three, we were staying in the same hotel as them. Yeah. We got back really quite late after the game , and Johnny was just sort of around reception and everybody else was out doing whatever they were doing and genuinely the look of a man who didn't know what to do because what do you that was the goal? Yeah, yeah. The goal was to win the World Cup. And I think out of all the players, he was the one who just went okay next year. Cool. Don't bitter. What's next? You've been building today your whole career when you when you achieve it. I'm sure a lot of sports people they get that I can see that. I can really empathize for that. I think that's the normal I, think that's the more norm al reaction . You know, most of them will probably have had it three days later, but he had it straight away . And that's really interesting, man. But I think what you imagine happening , spraying champagne and jumping up and down and sing in and I actually I think if you're very thoughtful like he is, I think that's not what you do in that situation. Exactly. That's not your thing. And also all the time, especially with individual sports people when they've been trying to get a to goal. So it's less about, you know, the whole thing is less about teamwork and camaraderie and the crack and your mates. It's about a goal and then you achieve the goal like now. Yeah, you know, you just have a set another goal. Like that we were back in that the free diving dock last week, you know? The reason she's probably broken another fifteen world records is if that's your life, what do you do? You broke a world record. Okay I'll broken the world record. Okay, now we can do. I gotta break another record. It just becomes all encompassing. And I think Johnny has always had that sort of of all that team and he's he's a very he's a very individual aistic if that's the word team player Britain is what he does. I'm not sure he doesn't do his bit in the team. He does, but he's he's much more focused about seems to be much more focused about his performance and the win and not letting people down and doing well . I just don't imagine Johnny as the sort of person who runs around the pitch after a game with his top off, an Amandola jumping into the stand kissing people. That's not what it's about for him, is it? No, it's such a weird and they bring out why do they keep bringing out Clive Woodward for stuff? Christ on a bike. He's so boring it is staggering staggering. Staggering. Someone said the other day that when he went to San Anton, right? 'Cause I remember when he went to San Anton briefly and he said that his number one love had always been football. Fuck off me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, don't like rugby. If you just had a shit lie at the tour about yeah , yeah. And his one thing he tried to bring to the training ground was lifting the goalkeeper top kicks. It's close . It was doing a line out lift on a goalkeeper for corners . Why? Why? Why are we doing that? That's a bad idea, Club, is it? Because shift, I mean, I'll be honest, or makes her in that basket. Do you know anything about football clubs? No. Never watch. What' as club. Which one is this? He gently just goes, I love drop kicks. And then he proceeds to he proceeds to recycle the three times table for us in case we're thick, you know? Yeah. Once you got three points, you can get six . And then you can get nine . Sesame Street does drop gold or if you're on fifteen, you know, you can go to eighteen. Yes, that's how it works. Like the cag on Sesame Street. Yeah. Three. It is amazing though as a layman to watch three experts not explain anything in four and half minutes. That is interesting. And there's so little time they dedicate that anyway. And also for years and years , the buildup and analysis was minimal anyway. The team know was on. I didn't know what I don't know where the games are. They didn't advertise it beforehand. They must have been a lot of money for the rights. It's relatively recent that you would get experts in to explain the minute of the sport you're watching. Yeah absolutely. They're not they've devoted four and a half minutes to drop goals. With the world's best drop kicker? With the world's best drop kicker. At the end of it, I was literally none the wazer. But the device they've used to allow people to talk is like you're in one of those yeah, like a self therapy session. Yeah, like a therapy session or like a past the ball building session. Yeah. So I was in one once at the BBC where the person in charge of the meeting threw this hack y sack to one of my colleagues at which point she threw a boiling hot cup of coffee over the person next to her to catch the hacky sack. Oh my god had the whole place descended into chin. Oh my gosh.et Minge Ruined. At one point, Dalalo then passes it to Johnny rather than to Sir Clive and that's the most human moment of the whole piece where Johnny giggles and passes it to Clive. So I was watching Dear John Remember Dear John McConnell today? Yeah, any sexual problems all that sort of stuff. You don't know passing up. What are you doing? Why are you doing? So I said, well, what do you do that? I said, Well, I don't know , I'm not in TV production, but I'd probably do things like I'd have a pitchy commentator. I mean, I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't reinvent the wheel. I'd be in Paris. I would do what they do on Monday night football, but I'd talk about rugby instead of soccer. Yeah. Or I'd watch S four C and do that in English. I wouldn't have a set that looks like ratatouille or another start point just because AI exists doesn't mean you have to greens screen everything . You don't have to do that. It looks like that. What was that? Nightmare? It was the kids program in the eighties when they put that. Yeah, nightmare. Looks like that 's great show. Great show. Yeah. Awful. They're standing up. Everyone's got a boner these days for standing up all the time on sports stuff. Everyone's gonna boner it. Why do they keep doing it? I think sports coverage in general is usually and I'm going to piss some people off here, right? Okay, good. But if something sort of works or they think a focus group thinks it works, suddenly everyone does it, right? So at the moment, everyone's wearing tight black jeans and they've all got black trainers on their white soles, right? Em does that. It doesn't matter if it's football, much of the day, scrum fight, whatever, right? I always think that's a branding thing. Just weird. You can't work out what the what the shoe makes is if they're all in Adidas or Pulmer shoes or the pair it's not gonna kill you is it a purple pair of shoes? Yeah. But ITV have sort of they've kept all the bits that are the throwaway bits of that. So everyone is wearing tight jeans and white sole trainers . Yeah, yeah. And everyone is standing up for some reason. People have to stand up these days Garden knows way. Look like fifteen to one on the first couple of episodes of the broke. That's good. Yeah, yeah, that's true. But they've been all the other stuff. So they don't do , you know, the pitch side stuff, they don't get proper analysis in, they don't have a bit of there's so much you could have done with that. You've paid the money, you've paid the big bucks. Part of me is grateful they've done it because it's kept that on terrestrial TV and it's not being a paywall when you can watch it absolutely. What a missed trick