OT: MLL on ESPN
ESPN is showing Major League Lacrosse right now. It sounds like Chicago should kill Long Island. What stands out to me is just how crappy a product the MLL coverage is. As good of a job as ESPN does of the NCAA championship weekend, the horrible camera angles, bad camera placement, and graphics covering up play seem wholly out of place.
How do they do such a good job with one, but a roundly horrible job with the other?
Well, since Lacrosse isn't really mainstream (sorry Northeasterners, it's not), they probably just send their B-level production team to cover it.
I was thinking the same thing. I'd guess that more people watch college lacrosse, and so they spend more money on that. I've never watched MLL before, so maybe it's usually not this bad.
Championship Weekend is far and away the biggest event in lacrosse. Though pro lacrosse is (debatably) a higher skill level, it doesn't compare at all.
Relating it to a more well known sport: with basketball, March Madness is pretty damn important, but people still follow the NBA. Championship Weekend vs. pro lax is like March Madness vs. the WNBA. No comparison.
I follow college lacrosse very closely, but I don't even know all the teams in the MLL, let alone the NLL. It's just not to that point, and might never get there. And while I wish that it could be different, pro lacrosse just won't be viable without gimmicks, which make it unbearable to watch as a lacrosse player. College lax is the purest form of the sport, and that is very unlikely to change.
So that's why the coverage is so extensive and good. Because (though it seems backwards to a fan of mainstream sports in America) it's the highest contest in the game. So the coverage will always be better, like how the World Cup is so well-covered vs. any other soccer league. And why the Super Bowl is the most-watched football game.
I think you get the idea, sorry if I've rambled