Chuck Barrett hasn’t had to deal with doing several hours of live sports talk on the radio without any games going on but he has a pretty good idea of how he would handle it.
“I’ve got the advantage because I grew up in Arkansas and I would have talked about every game I’d seen,” he told Phil Elson, Matt Jenkins and Matt Travis (Halftime) on ESPN Arkansas Tuesday. “It’s difficult right now. You’ve gotta keep delivering the mail every day and that’s how it works.”
During this current health crisis, television networks have changed the way they’re covering sports with announcers not actually at the game but in a studio back home.
My first thought was “uh-oh” when I heard about that. Let me be clear — I don’t really care one way or the other, but watching the advances in technology it’s something you could see coming a mile away.
Whether anybody likes it or not is going to be a personal opinion.
“We’re going to see more and more of this,” Barrett said. “That’s one of the things in our business that’s going to change and won’t change back. That’s kind of the way the world works now.
“I’m not going to say I think it’s great but that’s the way we’re headed. Television has a little advantage because they let the picture tell the story.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how we evolve as a business.”
Auto racing started it last weekend with NASCAR getting under way and continues Tuesday and Wednesday evenings during a hectic schedule of seven races in 11 days.
A golf deal with Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will be played this weekend with the announcers back in a studio.
I’m not really sure how that would play out on radio, but it came off okay for television. It has changed the face of television with more and more interviews via different platforms.
Press conferences have gone on Zoom or teleconference. While it’s not perfect the system seems to be much better than nothing.
With the NCAA’s expected announcement Wednesday of green-lighting teams to have players back on campus in June (and the SEC to announce something Friday), we have no idea how things are going to work in the media.
But it will be different.
