Jenga54
Double Eagle Member
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2010
- Messages
- 1,976
A little clarity regarding the problem? It's lack of entertainment value.
However, the only option to sustain a pro tour is more people wanting to watch online and/or in person, even better if they're willing to pay to watch.
I went through quite few options in my series on getting more spectators. One of them is a more compelling game design FOR COMPETITION.
So that's where we are - how to do it if it's even possible.
Specifically looking at ball golf to borrow ideas makes sense, not only because it's also golf, but because they have proven elements that draw more spectator interest. It's ironic that ball golf is now looking for ideas to retain/gain players and is indirectly looking to disc golf (faster play, bigger hole).
If some ideas can be transformed to work for disc golf, there's reasonable chance they might be less pleasant to play for all players.
I agree that it needs to be more interesting to watch if you are going to grow the viewing audience, however I don't know that making a change to the putting experience will all of a sudden make it compelling to the mass audience.
I won't take credit for all these ideas because they are cut and paste from Wikipedia - but if you look at what's on TV, it's non-stop action. What we get with a 2-camera system is 4 tee shots followed by a commentator huffing and puffing walking down each fairway along with the players. Get the guy a golf cart already, as I mention every live cast. You need cameras everywhere, with microphones everywhere, and a central desk for the anchors to run the show. Have the reporters walk down the cards and jump to them for analysis on the details. Then cut to a new shot from another player. There will be 10-20 players I would love to see shooting out there, and watching 2+ dozen players is enough action to fill the gaps. From Wiki page about the PGA Tour and Frank Chirkinian:
Chirkinian was responsible for a number of innovations in the television presentation of golf. He ensured as many microphones as possible were placed around the golf course to pick up the sounds of the tournament and golfers' conversations, rather than having commentators talk over silent footage. He showed as many golf shots as possible, cutting quickly from player to player to keep up the pace of the broadcast, unafraid of focusing on the game's stars. The use of multiple cameras was introduced during Chirkinian's tenure, including high-angle cameras mounted in trees and on blimps for the first time. Chirkinian said that he was most proud of being the first to display golfers' scores relative to par, rather than cumulatively, making it simpler to work out how they were faring relative to the rest of the field. Most of all, Chirkinian thought it important to allow coverage to focus on golfers and the shots they made, and was critical of recent innovations in golf broadcasting that he saw as distracting and unnecessary.
Since 2004, all of CBS's golf broadcasts outside of the Masters have featured super slow motion video of golfers' shots from a super slow motion camera used for swing analysis by Peter Kostis
If anyone is familiar with the last 6 months of live streams, we've started to see some of these elements. Jussi's broadcast of the EO featured slow motion shots of throws, and that was so awesome to see. It fills up dead space and is something to be discussed beyond the current score and standings.
I think it goes hand-in-hand, it takes lots of money to have 20 camera guys and 50 microphones and 5 commentators, and it would be able to draw a much larger audience with high tech graphics, non-stop action.
Maybe to begin with, time formatted as a 2 hour broadcast. You can gather up clips from the beginning of the round, and then air holes 6-18 with video catch up and analysis, which will both eat up dead time and save some cash to be put towards extra cameras and manpower.