My word, wasn’t the pile on England’s cricket side brutal during the Ashes series in Australia?
When I say brutal, I mean absolutely brutal. Sure, the brain-dead batting and boozing didn’t help get the fans or the media onside.
But the ridicule and criticism were at the level you would usually associate with an abject display by England’s football side at a major tournament. Headline after headline has torn the players and the coach Brendon McCullum to shreds.
And they have not been alone on the naughty step. TNT Sports was in the firing line from fans who went to town on coverage of the 74th Ashes series, in which England were roundly beaten 4-1 by the Aussies.
This broadcasting behemoth has recently been announced as the UK supplier of LIV Golf in a multi-year agreement, the Saudi-funded circuit now entering its fifth season, and moving from its previous home of free-to-air ITV. In the US, Fox Sports has the coverage rights.
But golf fans will pray that TNT Sports does a far better job of showing golf than cricket, as when it wasn’t batsmen Harry Brook or Jamie Smith in line at the guillotine, it was the broadcasters and the general mediocrity of the coverage.
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TNT has had the away Ashes rights since the 2017/2018 series, but in the last two, they have adopted the commentary of Fox Sports or Channel Nine. This time around, they had a hybrid setup with some pundits on the ground (in the gantry) and some commentary from a UK studio.
At times, fans experienced significant delays where the commentators would tell them something had happened before the pictures showed it. At one point, English bowler Brydon Carse’s catch to remove Australia’s Mitchell Starc was called when Starc initially hit the ball, and before it reached Carse’s hands.
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Also, in a truly laugh-or-cry moment for TNT commentator Rob Hatch during the fifth test, who usually calls cycling, he reported that Ben Stokes had been run out on the mic, when actually it was a replay of an earlier run-out of Smith.
What made this more excruciating was that Hatch was calling the action live from Sydney Cricket Ground and looking at a monitor, instead of what was in front of him at the arena. He was understandably ‘mortified’, and while none of us should throw daggers at an honest human mistake, the incident was symptomatic of TNT’s coverage of the whole five-test affair.
This is why the quality of what we see with our eyes is so important, though. When basic errors are made by the medium through which you are watching sport, or the general standard of the broadcast is poor, your mindset isn’t going to be one of positivity or empathy, especially if you build your day, or even sleep, around watching said sport.
You’re annoyed at the quality of the broadcast, and that’s before you’re annoyed at an England batsman swiping away and nicking one behind into the palms of the slips, or before the sport has even got underway. Golf has lived this life in America for a while, if the mood of some of our trans-Atlantic chums is anything to go by.
At each men’s major of the year, the popular golf podcast No Laying Up records a show after each round, and within each podcast, there is usually a section reserved for lambasting the coverage (usually NBC), the amount of adverts and the lack of golf shown to the viewers.
The pod protagonists are extremely passionate about viewers being treated with respect, and being delivered value for their TV subscriptions. They aren’t the only ones, either. The critics join them in droves in their comments sections, and it is quite jolting to read, actually.
ALSO: What has LIV Golf built so far, and what must come next to guarantee its survival in the sport?
LIV Golf still has many to convince. It disrupted the established golf order in 2022, creating a new league and attracting a handful of stars using the riches of the Saudi Public Investment Fund. Up against the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, which have been part of the golf viewership’s cemented routine for decades, LIV has a battle for legitimacy and will hope it has taken a step towards that with a TNT Sports deal in the UK.
Praise is due in this case. LIV has graduated from showing action for free on YouTube to the CW, and now Fox in America. It was then on ITV in the UK, but has now seemingly taken a step up the ladder to TNT, which shows Premier League football, Ashes cricket, Premiership rugby and the popular UFC. LIV hopes it becomes part of the regular diet of a TNT Sports viewer.
What we can presume is that TNT will show the in-house LIV broadcast, with the usual suspects Jerry Foltz, Arlo White and David Feherty in the booth. They attend every event, and LIV has a vast and enthusiastic inside-the-ropes commentary team stomping the grounds, bolstered by the recent acquisition of Sky Sports analyst Henni Zuel.
TNT and Sky are the big dogs of sports broadcasting in the UK. With Sky tied up showing the majors, the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour, kudos to LIV for striking a relationship with the next best thing.
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The addition of LIV Golf to their offering will be welcome news in TNT towers, having recently lost UK rights to the Champions League to Paramount+, and Europa League rights to Sky Sports. ITV has also paid £80 million for the inaugural Nations Championship in rugby union.
The debacle of the Ashes showed us that poor coverage, whether that is out-of-sync commentary or uninsightful punditry, can shape the perception of an event before it starts. Many cricket fans were openly offended by what they saw this winter, which just so happened to be sprinkled by an abject England display.
If LIV Golf is to fully take off in the UK, now behind a paywall as well, TNT Sports must deliver a smooth and slick job, or the sceptics might just walk away for good.
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