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 Racquetball Needs Better Technology
When racquetball went prime time
recently, at the US Open on ESPN, telecasting the championship
tournament at two in the afternoon, it shows that racquetball is making
a step in the right direction, but there are many improvements needed
before racquetball presentations on television rivals that of its
competitors in tennis, football, and basketball.
In racquetball, we have the
newest technology available in our racquets, yet our television coverage
remains amateurish and stuck in the past. We all know that TV can’t
expect to capture all the power and speed of live action, but
racquetball can do more in terms of recreating the thrill of being there
and providing insights into the story behind the scenes.
Veteran
television producers said there are some tough obstacles to overcome
before this becomes a reality, they point to some difficult problems
like the players and the governing bodies aren’t always seeing eye to
eye on how limited racquetball money should be allocated to provide
first rate coverage on par with other major sports like tennis, football
and basketball.
Management would love to
provide more coverage for many more events, but this costs money and
decreases the winner’s purses. I feel this is not a zero sum game,
that racquetball needs to exclusively allocate money for television
broadcasts to stay competitive, this entails taking short term losses in
revenues, marketing shares, and a smaller winner purse in return for
long term gains.
In the long run, racquetball will capitalizes on an
ever- increasing health oriented society and garner a larger share of
the sport market with increase coverage. Like the Japanese, racquetball
management and its players must think of long terms gains over short
term plusses and realizes that to create numbers, you have to got to get
your packaged product out there to initiate public interest.
When I say packaged product, I
don’t mean the past several US Open televised matches where there were
overly long commercials, dead air between shots, and breaking up scores
in the middle of a game, which makes it tough to get into a flow of a
game. It shows how sloppily made the past three US Open tapes were
hastily made and put on the market.
It’s one thing to put it on the
market to create as much interest as possible, but doing it amateurishly
leaves an impression with the viewers that racquetball is a second rate
sport when they compare it to the top notch coverage of tennis, football
and basketball.
Yes, racquetball coverage has two advantages going for
it, namely its two colorful commentators, Aaron Katz and Tommy Sanders,
but even their colorful commentaries can do little to offset racquetball
amateurish presentations. There is little done to show the viewers how
hard and accurate these talented pros really hit and even more little of
the history of the game.
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