The Bocker.com

If some viewers of ESPN’s coverage of Euro 2008 had not yet figured out that ESPN was producing coverage entirely from Bristol, Connecticut without even game commentators live in Switzerland or Austria, today’s tournament semifinal between Germany and Turkey clearly clued all watchers in to this fact.

Due to thunderstorms in Vienna, Austria, the international feed which ESPN had been airing was interrupted three times during today’s game, causing viewers to miss a ten-minute stretch near the game’s conclusion where Germany scored to take a 2-1 lead and Turkey equalized to make it 2-all.  The feed came back to show Germany’s Philip Lahm score the game winning goal in the 90th minute, only instantly cutout again, blacking out all of stoppage time.  What should have been a classic semifinal game was marred by the outages.

Even though the game had been played in Basel, Switzerland, the feed broadcast by many stations around the world was the one coming from Vienna, so ESPN was not alone in losing picture of the game.  However, given the awful conditions which ESPN has been able to deal with in the past to broadcast NFL football games, I am fairly certain that an ESPN produced feed would not have cut out so much due to inclement weather.

In addition to today’s weather related difficulties, ESPN has had to deal with an international feed that has failed to provide adequate replays of critical plays several games, causing even the announcers to complain that they needed another look at a play to provide a proper accessment as to what was going on.

ESPN looked at Euro 2008 as a no-loss situations and aired it locking to save costs by producing the whole event from its headquarters.  However, Euro 2008 has been an unexpected success for ESPN, as viewers have tuned in and critics have praised the network for getting a true professional announcer in Andy Gray for the tournament.  Hopefully, the success of the tournament for ESPN in addition to ongoing discussions about bidding for television rights for England’s Premier League will push ESPN to put more money in its overseas soccer broadcasts and avoid the problems that come with relying on someon else’s feed.