Hoops

The New NBL: What's Actually New?

I wanted to double-check the circumstances of the game-winner for Townsville against Sydney.

So I went to the NBL app, and looked for highlights, but there's only one page of videos available for display, so it's impossible to get highlights for that game.

I tried the NBL's YouTube channel, but the only thing they've uploaded this year is the TV commercial.

So I figured I'd have to make do without video, and check the match report. But you can no longer just look at match reports, you have to dig through every news article.

And the Kings-Crocs match report doesn't exist.

There's a videos section on the website, though, which contains...nothing of interest. And the photos section hasn't been updated since the season launch.

Absolutely unacceptable.

Just tried to find the Andrej Lemanis anouncement on the NBL website, and it's not on the front page.

Stats are a week out of date, too.

Nah if you use females you can pay them 18% less than if you use men

That's just sad.

No, not just to me. Objectively, factually. They are completely and utterly 100% irrelevant.

Plenty of highlights on their news bulletins, which there hasn't been for eons, and there weren't on Ten, and the promotion of upcoming games in the broadcasts is clearly a focus.

One/Ten had absolutely zero [shots of cheerleaders]

Much better start to the broadcast tonight.

What gives the impression the broadcaster cares? Why does the newness of the TV deal affect the complete lack of highlights anywhere?

During last night's game from Perth, when displaying the upcoming games for each team, the home and away games were the wrong way around.

Shots of cheerleaders are increasing dramatically, too.

Anyone remember the first year of the One HD deal? Video packages, a weekly wrap up show, courtside reporters...

It's actually not. Ten had a shot clock for the last ten seconds.

Still haven't had a proper clock in any game yet this season. It's beyond a joke.

Tommy Greer mispronouncing "Majok" and "Hadziomerovic" is disappointing. Him mispronouncing "Goulding" is just bizarre.

(NBL segment starts at about the 6:20 mark btw)

Jeremy Loeliger on ABC Grandstand spruiking the new NBL:
http://t.co/qT0gHJWQyf

Kind of unfortunate to use that Crocs home game for the first bit of footage

It's not like Fox Sports haven't worked with the NBL before, either. And the NBL isn't that different to the other sports they have on anyway.

http://www.aussiehoopla.com/nbls-tv-product-new-new-nbl/

And I just remembered another thing: all the league's marketing is promoting the #Hardball hashtag. The TV graphics occasionally plug Twitter, but with the #NBL16 hashtag.

It's not just about getting highlights out in terms of social media and things...none of the commercials contain highlights. The opening for TV doesn't contain highlights. The pre-game segment doesn't contain highlights. The halftime segment doesn't contain highlights from any games other than the one being broadcast at the time.

And as far as names...is it that hard? The NBL put 'Introducing...' videos for each team on the app at the start of the year, featuring each player saying their own name. All any of the commentators have to do is watch the two videos for the teams in the game they're about to call, and take note of any odd pronunciations. Matt Russell was getting Te Rangi right two nights ago, indicating he'd done his research, which was fantastic and I made note of it at the time. But tonight, Voss mispronounced both Djeric and Markovic repeatedly. Rucker got off to a horrible start for Adelaide-Perth, mangling Jervis, Jawai, Prather and Kenyon, but he got them all right in the second half so he'd obviously done some research during the break.

But that should be mandatory pre-game stuff. Not halftime, not never.

It was particularly odd to hear Tommy Greer botching Majok, Goulding and Hadziomerovic. Especially Goulding.

While we're on the subject: turns out everyone's been pronouncing 'Tragardh' wrong for years.

The name stuff doesn't bother me.
In most cases it is commentators who are doing a pretty good job of calling games, but these players are new to them. So I think that will naturally sort itself out over time.
Andrew Gaze spent his life in this league and was still hopeless in that department. That bothered me.

The website, I agree with you on. I'm not a fan. I don't find its layout intuitive to use, and for such an elaborate design there's not much in the way of content. It's not a big deal to me since I only really use it for the game score ribbon at the top anyway.

Highlights are something I hope they will improve on. Now that every game is covered in HD, there is no excuse for not being able to get good highlights packages out. They're already doing well with tweeting individual highlight plays in a timely manner. Compilations should be the next step. And yes they should be free to view on the app. Again, the app has only just happened, so hopefully that tweak is coming.

I don't quite understand why there's such an issue with getting the scores & clock on the broadcast. I really thought that would be Sports Broadcasting 101 and therefore a given for Foxtel.

The biggest issues for me:
The huge website rebuild that made the website worse.
Refusing to use any highlights anywhere anyone might see them.
Zero games with a properly functioning scoreboard.


And also hugely annoying, but probably more for me than for most, is the incorrect name pronunciations.

I don't think it's hating to point out things that are flawed.
Things aren't perfect yet. There's no need to pretend they are.
There's also no need to throw up our arms and give up.
It's very early days in the LK reign. The direction and the intent seem positive to me. As long as it keeps trending in that direction then I'll be pretty happy.
If they stopped right now, and what we have today remained the status quo for the rest of the season, then yes that would certainly be worth feeling disappointed about.

Seems to be a lot of people drinking out of a half empty glass here.
Rome wasn't built in a day.

If you want to complain about the TV deal despite it being far better than could realistically be hoped for, go elsewhere.

@Isaac:

New app has been flawless for me and is perfectly priced.

League's efforts on Twitter and Instagram have been excellent IMO.

TV deal is with a provider who actually seems to want to be involved, unlike previously.

No need to focus not eh negatives too hard, thats been the downfall with ball fans for years!

New font bro

got the guide the other day - 84 big ones on fox 1,2,3 ESPN and ESPN HD.

this is not including WNBL on ABC and all the ONE HD games

woo hooo - some days have 3 college games