"The Broadcast You Are Watching Is Experiencing Technical Difficulties"

[Sam Hill]

Anyone surprised this joke of a league could not get its ESPN3 broadcast up and running on time?

[Sam Hill]

Finally came on. Single camera, shaky. Absolutely no one there. The kind of football you would expect in a tropical storm between two teams who have barely practiced.

The analyst (someone named Stu Johnson) is toeing the party line with the 25% callbacks figure that has yet to be verified. The PBP guy is just some kid with a fake announcer voice.

[preeths]

Yeah, the quality of the broadcast has somehow taken a big step back from last year. Brooklyn may challenge Boston for the league's smallest crowd, though the weather looks miserable.

[Sam Hill]

To be fair, they did eventually get a second camera and graphics up and running. It was still very rudimentary and it was an ugly game.

God knows what it will look like in Hudson Valley.

[preeths]

What happened to Nivea? I saw only a portion of the game, but I didn't see one mention of Nivea. That sideline reporter, Cicma I think, was absent, too, from what I saw.

[preeths]

According to a Bolts Facebook post, attendance was "950 or so" with most of them huddled in the concourse behind home plate. There goes 1/3 of Brooklyn's gate for the season.

[preeths]

Broadcast aside, how bad was this game? According to the Bolts Twitter feed, Brooklyn had eight fumbles in the first half, four of them recovered by the Blacktips. An amazing six of those fumbles were botched snaps, one of which the Blacktips recovered for a score. Another fumble was knocked through the endzone for a safety. Josh Freeman opened the second half by throwing an interception, and the Bolts other QB, Jake Heaps, also tossed one late that was returned for a touchdown. Brooklyn scored its only touchdown after recovering a muffed punt.

[aball]

At least the players got tape....... So about 20 of them will get NFL callbacks

[aball]

Watched about 5 minutes of this garbage. No way there were more then 300 people there..... Maybe even less than that.

[Sam Hill]

[quote=""preeths""]What happened to Nivea? I saw only a portion of the game, but I didn't see one mention of Nivea. That sideline reporter, Cicma I think, was absent, too, from what I saw.[/quote]

Harry Cicma was also producing the broadcasts last year. I do not believe he is involved this year. Likewise, no weekly magazine show. All these things cost money.

Also, photos I have seen on Instagram show the Nivea patch on the Blacktips' jerseys, but I don't know if they were on the Bolts' jerseys and I don't know if they were only on the Blacktips' jerseys because they were on there last year and taking them off would have required a seamstress.

It was a multi-year deal, though, remember? Yuk, yuk, yuk.

But I think my favorite part of the broadcast was Play By Play Boy saying the rain was from "Hurricane joe-a-queen." Good job, Gringo!