This was supposed to be Wednesday's review. Today's review of It's a Numbers Game will be up later on this evening.
Side Note: Since this series began, The Mtn. has expanded coverage into Boston, Chicago, Indianapolis, the state of Michigan and the Western New England area. Is the logic working so far?
Many of us, the fans, may just be able to help the Mountain West schools, literally. It's a longshot, but here is my logic: Right now, almost nobody watches The Mtn. except for football and basketball games. If we start watching the shows, then the network can report more viewers which helps with advertising and also helps with showing Comcast why the reach of The Mtn. needs to be bigger.
The advertising will in turn make the network quality better and give even more reason for Comcast to make The Mtn. a channel available nationally on their cable service. That creates a huge jump in subscribers to The Mtn. (TowerPower pointed this out to me in another thread. People don't have to subscribe specifically to The Mtn, all they have to do is subscribe to the package Comcast offers it with. i.e. With the new reach in Atlanta, The Mtn. is in the same package as NFL Redzone. Without knowing it, tons of people will subscribe to The Mtn. as well as NFL Redzone and the MWC makes money off of it. Put that on a national scale with the largest cable provider in the nation and the amount of money made off of subscribers jumps through the roof) that in turn actually helps provide money to the schools we consider ourselves fans of.
If there is an issue with that logic, please point that out in the comments for me as I am not even sure that us watching more of The Mtn. will actually follow this train of thought.
With that, here is today's review of this week's installment of Mountain Sports Report.
Alright, since this is a grade system, that means I have to have a series of things to grade on. Here is my grading rubric:
| Graphics | How well the graphics look. i.e. how good are the video clips, do they have good statistics, do the graphics stand out? |
| Analysis | How much does the analysis make sense? Does it seem like the analysts are saying something you and I have already come up with or is it something that's new? |
| Quality of Interview Questions | Are they questions that everyone is wondering or are they meaningless? |
| Smoothness of Show | How smooth is the transition between camera angles, in and out of commercials and graphics? |
Graphics:
The Graphics were the best of any show I have seen so far. The graphics ran smoothly and didn't seem dull and uninteresting. With many of the shows on The Mtn, the graphics just don't pop out. The graphics on these show had bright colors and letters that stood out. Not to mention they had some very interesting video clips.
Graphics Grade:
A+
Analysis:
The Analysis was somewhat good. For the football part of the show they previewed the bowl games. Since I follow college football very intensely, there are some things that I know about teams that it seemed like the analysts just didn't know. The average fan wouldn't have picked it up, but there was a few things that these guys just left out when making their argument for who was going to win. Not to mention the amazing MWC Bias (rare as it is) to the point where both analysts predicted Utah blowing out Boise State in the Vegas Bowl...
Analysis Grade:
B
Quality of Interview Questions:
Mountain Sports Report brought Troy Calhoun, head coach of the Air Force Falcons football team, on at the beginning of the show to ask his thoughts on particular things. The questions were all football related and questions that I was wondering such as "With Georgia Tech also running the triple option, will you mix it up and try to pass the ball more in order to catch Georgia Tech unprepared?"
Not only did they bring in Troy Calhoun for some insight regarding the Independence Bowl, but they also brought in Paul Johnson, head coach of the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team. I definitely applaud The Mtn. for taking the initiative and having a reporter and camera man fly out to Georgia Tech in order to get the interview. Although the interview was brief, they did get some insight from Johnson regarding how he planned to stop an attack similar to his own. Mountain Sports Report also had brief interviews with Mike Price and Bronco Mendenhall, but the interviews occurred just as they were arriving at their respective hotels, so neither interview produced much.
Quality of Interview Questions Grade:
A
Smoothness of Show:
The show only hit a few bumps in the road, particularly issues with the sound during the Troy Calhoun interview. Other than that, the show ran along very smoothly with no technical difficulties on screen.
Smoothness of Show Grade:
A-
Let's take another look at that rubric, this time with the grades:
| Graphics | How well the graphics look. i.e. how good are the video clips, do they have good statistics, do the graphics stand out? | A+ |
| Analysis | How much does the analysis make sense? Does it seem like the analysts are saying something you and I have already come up with or is it something that's new? | B |
| Quality of Interview Questions | Are they questions that everyone is wondering or are they meaningless? | A |
| Smoothness of Show | How smooth is the transition between camera angles, in and out of commercials and graphics? | A- |
Final Grade:
A
This was a very good show and I would have given it an A+ if there hadn't been a few sound problems and a seven minute part that almost made me want to fall asleep. Other than that, the show has great analysis on all MWC sports, not just football. They have news on Baseball and Basketball as well. This show is great for a fan of watching the MWC as a whole, not just their team only.
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