Friday, January 13, 2012

Well, Isn't That Special?

First up, on the off chance that you haven't seen it already, here's the link an article that ran in People magazine last week about the PBR.

I thought you might particularly enjoy reading it (possibly for the second or third time) because it now appears that there will be NO broadcast of the PBR event in Anaheim on CBS Sports until Sunday. I've checked both the PBR website and my local listings, and that is the only conclusion I can draw.

Which brings me to the point of this post—I thought the move to CBS Sports was supposed to be big leap forward for the sport, but now I'm not so sure. First off, the coverage of the event started half an hour late last Saturday night because you can never depend on basketball players to get the game over within the allotted time, and now it is looking like we are going to be endlessly jerked around from one weekend to the next, trying to figure out where to tune in and when.

All this makes me wonder why the PBR forsook Versus in the first place. I sort of doubt that they are going to herd a whole bunch of new fans into the fold with this late-Saturday-night crap, although of course those of us in the western time zones won't fare as badly as our comrades on the East Coast or even the Midwest. I guess they can always hope that some rednecks will have passed out drunk on the couch in the early evening and will awaken to find that their basketball game is over, but hey! We see guys climbing on the backs of bulls! Must still be feeling that cheap tequila!

And for those of you who managed to watch the Friday night event last week on YouTube, I am truly happy for you, but I will not be joining you. I'm sure it's all because I tried to watch it on my laptop, but all I succeeded in doing was getting a migraine. I refuse to consider watching on my PC—I work on the damned thing about 60 hours a week, I have to work until 6 p.m. on Friday nights, and I am not going to sit in front of the computer for another second past that hour, thank you very much, not even for the PBR.

We are not starting off well, folks. First we have all this hassle with actually managing to SEE the events, and then when we do manage to see it—ye Gods and little fishes, Dakota Beck got smacked in the face and suffered a "through and through" laceration of his cheek, and then on Saturday night, what a horrible wreck Pistol Robinson got into. In hindsight, J.B. Mauney's recorded comment that his dad always told him to get up and walk out of the arena "unless you have two broken legs" seems like the worst possible coincidence, unless you, like Freud, believe there are no coincidences, and no accidents, either. If Freud had followed professional bull riding, he might have rethought that position some.

I suppose we should be grateful that it only took the PBR about four days to report that Pistol had undergone not one, but two, surgeries, that when he finally gets up, he'll be walking around on titanium rods and a double handful of screws in both legs, and that the surgeon reported that putting Pistol's left leg back together was like reassembling a jigsaw puzzle. I won't be the least bit surprised, though, if that's the last we hear about Pistol for at least a year, since, needless to say, he's out for the season.

So hightail it on over to the People website, folks, and get your (admittedly weakass) PBR fix for the next three days! That is, of course, unless you are braver than I am and are willing to wrestle with the new and improved LEC, where, as far as I can see, you can't see anything beyond the last five rides. Laissez les bon temps roulez!

And before I forget: Bring back Justin McKee!

6 comments:

Shawk said...

The comments in the People article are something else, that's for sure, but good on the PBR for getting the coverage.

I initially thought that since NBC was primed to try to get NBCSN in position to challenge ESPN in the coming years, maybe they weren't terribly welcoming to the PBR as far as renewing with them. But they do seem to be airing the PBR this year, so I'm not sure what that all means. I do know that the PBR's crowing that "football is on major channels and the PBR is on major channels, therefore the PBR is major" is a logical fallacy in the "fish swim, children swim, children are fish" vein.

I do realize the PBR is probably trying to make the best of the situation, but as per usual, their PR baffles and enrages.

I really dislike the new LEC. I would be okay with it if it were easier to navigate, and you could see more of the past rides. Not all of us are going to be glued to the computer screen for the duration, guys.

shannon said...

I think the biggest problem lies in the PBR PR department. Some of the articles are not very clear and the website is atrocious--very hard to find what you're looking for.

If NBC has cut back on hours, thus forcing the PBR to look elsewhere for it's coverage, then maybe the fans should start an email/phone call campaign to NBC about the cuts and to CBS about requesting more time slots. It may not work, but sometimes it does.

Stockyard Queen said...

Welcome, Saraht! I appreciate your comments, but I don't really think that trading a situation in which we got two full nights of coverage for one in which we sometimes get two nights and sometimes will be lucky to get one helps the cause much.

Shawk said...

I don't have any problem with having Friday nights of events on YouTube-- I was actually pleasantly surprised that it was a full production with interviews and scoring on the screen. However, YouTube for some nights we didn't get to see before doesn't make up for not getting some of the days we used to see. I can't figure out how they came up with this. Maybe they only had enough sponsor dollars to do certain nights on YouTube?

I was watching part of Saturday's event on the LEC, and the mid-show "entertainment," besides the awful, cheesy jousting, was some dudes trying to hit a plastic buck with suction cup arrows or something. This is not going to help mainstream the sport, guys.

I think the jousting is very much in line with the "the PBR is major" thinking. "The PBR is dangerous, jousting is dangerous, therefore PBR fans will like jousting!" (Honestly, I've seen better jousting at Renaissance Faires. And certainly better fake falls.)

Anonymous said...

Wow, some of you people took the words right out of my mouth! (because I've been way behind in posting on my blog)
SQ, you crack me up every time.
We need McKee. We need a consistent schedule that we don't have to hunt all over to find. We need a Live Event Center that tells you who rode what when, and what the score was--not just for the last 5 rides! And if they're going to use YouTube, for god's sake, find someone who knows how to do the job professionally. I've seen better quality videos done by kids. I will rant in detail on my blog, hopefully this week.

nvp said...

My ingenious friend E helped me wire my laptop to my TV, so I was able to watch the You Tube broadcast of MSG on a big screen--albeit with the occasional freeze. This Live Event Center bidness, however, is crazy. It's unreliable, and as far as I can tell, unrecordable (please correct me if I'm wrong.) It does seem the BFTS schedule is stacked with more Friday/Saturday events than Saturday/Sunday, so perhaps this is what's complicating matters. Since when is more time spent gazing at our computers improving our coverage?