Is ESPN's tennis coverage garbage or complete garbage?

For those forced to watch ESPN"s coverage of Men's tennis here in the states my condolences. ESPN has good announcers in Gilbert, Chris Fowler, the Mac brothers, and Pam Shriver. But I missed the entire Djokovic match on my DVR because they played a little league baseball game, not even the championship or semis till the first set and half of the Djokovic match was completed. They picked up action at 4-2 in the second set. They moved the Djoko match to some other less watched of their channels with a late announcement. I mean you bump down a Masters event in a tight number 1 race to show 12 year olds playing baseball. I think I would rather watch baby seals being clubbed to death than 12 year olds playing baseball. That might be a slight exaggeration of my horror when the first 90 minutes of my DVR was filled with you guessed it little league baseball. ESPN only buys tennis events to ruin them. The early rounds are covered wonderfully by tennis channel showing almost every minute of the men's action. When these monsters, these heathens at ESPN take over the coverage they basically cut down the broadcast hours to a third. And then fill up half their broadcast window with fat kids swinging bats and move Tennis to ESPN3, 4, or 996 or whatever. If tennis is such a crappy rated sport that 12 year old baseball trumps it then why BUY THE GODDAMN EVENT IN THE FIRST PLACE AND SPEND MILLIONS OF DOLLARS ON A STAR STUDDED CAST OF BROADCASTERS. When Roddick or the Williams sisters are playing or Fed they do a good job of showing the matches. But they basically ignore hundreds of hours of broadcasts that they have bought and paid for it seems with the only intention of making sure that the American public doesn't watch tennis channel. If the American public can enjoy a venus williams or Andy Roddick match I am sure they would enjoy Nadal, Murray, or Djokovic. I don't believe for one second that the quarterfinals of little league baseball out draws top notch tennis in this country the TV ratings aren't that bad.

Reading between the lines, do I detect the hint that you might be unhappy with ESPN?

I'm just amazed that little league baseball is on TV at all! Who's watching it?

CBS is broadcasting the Final in US, but their coverage is not that much better.

SoCal... In the US, if you have a Broadband (or an ISP like Cable/FIOS), then you also have access to ESPN3, which usually will broadcast live, even if ESPN2 has other commitments. You may want to inquire about such access and avoid disappointment, at least partially (it does require a computer though).

Take a look at http://www.watchespn.com .

Unfortunately recording via ESPN3 is a bit of a chore, but it can be done.

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laverfan wrote:CBS is broadcasting the Final in US, but their coverage is not that much better.

SoCal... In the US, if you have a Broadband (or an ISP like Cable/FIOS), then you also have access to ESPN3, which usually will broadcast live, even if ESPN2 has other commitments. You may want to inquire about such access and avoid disappointment, at least partially (it does require a computer though).

Take a look at http://www.watchespn.com .

Unfortunately recording via ESPN3 is a bit of a chore, but it can be done.

Well that is the problem, I have to record all the Cincy events because I work during the days. Even if I wasn't recording it I would take it as a ridiculous insult as a tennis fan to be superseded by fat kids swinging a bat.

Murdoch, I hate ESPN's coverage of tennis they give the sport no respect. If tennis is so crap rated why is it that one of the big old networks airs the finals of many of these masters as CBS is doing? Why spend millions of dollars on those broadcasters. Gilbert and the Mac brothers don't come cheap. It is ESPN's parochial and self important nature that allows for such nonsense. The network that tried to convince us that competitive hot dog eating and lumberjack contests, yes I am not kidding when these A-Wholes aren't filling their broadcast window with 12 year old baseball they spend hundreds of hours a year on this nonsense. Just because you self-important morons cover something doesn't make it a sport. A 140 pound asian guy eating 50 hot dogs in 30 minutes is not a sport, moutain men chopping wood is not a sport. Seriously, what kind of functional special would watch a guy chop wood on TV.

SoCal... You need to allow a bit of diversification so ESPN can cater to different viewerships.

Tennis Channel does cover but does not have the financial wherewithal to compete with ESPN and CBS/NBC.

Remember ESPN shows Poker and many esoteric sports, like Fishing, etc.

For example, the Wood Chopping is very popular with Canadian lumberjacks. ( iC ).