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NBC delays Wimbledon and tennis fans are not pleased
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Andy Murray falls to Andy Roddick. NBC does not air the match live.(AP-Photo)
NBC Saturday 9a.m. - The Women's Final - The Willams Sister's
NBC Sunday 9a.m. - The Men's Final - Roger Federer vs. Andy Roddick
Broadband - NBCSports.com, ESPN360.com, Wimbledon.org
Long after Roger Federer had beaten Tommy Haas to advance to his seventh straight Wimbledon Final and in the middle of the third set of the Andy Roddick – Andy Murray match NBC came on the air at noon eastern time.
Way too late for most tennis fans in the United States who were up in arms that they had missed for no real good reason the live action from SW-19.
I get it that NBC came on at noon so that the entire country would be able to see the action at a reasonable hour. So tape delaying the Wimbledon Gentlemen’s Semi Finals meant at 9a.m. on the west coast.
But it was a huge mistake made by the network.
I was listening to action live and for free on Radio Wimbledon where they were tweeting during the semi-finals. As I monitored the Radio Wimbledon “Tweets” and the American tennis fans were mad as hell and they let it be known that NBC clearly missed the mark by not airing the action from Wimbledon live.
The big winner was Radio Wimbledon as they welcomed their American listeners and during the Murray-Roddick match they promised to do their best not to be to pro Murray. But the RW team of Nigel Bidmead, Rupert Bell, Bill Bowery, and Samantha Lloyd in the studio and on the hill was Simon Munday did a brilliant job of calling the epic match on Centre Court.
They were indeed quite fair in their fine analysis of Roddick’s four set victory win over the hometown favorite Murray who all of the U.K. was pulling for including at times the Radio Crew, but who could blame them. Fred Perry in 1936 was the last Englishman to win at Wimbledon.
Meanwhile NBC was still in the second set of the match.
There really was no reason that NBC should not have shown the Wimbledon action live. In the age of instant information clearly anyone who wanted to know what was going on at Wimbledon could find the information anywhere on the web, via radio or for that matter via Face Book, Twitter or text message.
The irony is that this is the 30th anniversary of Breakfast at Wimbledon where the network started doing the Gentleman’s Finals live. Ted Patterson, John McEnroe and Mary Carillo are great broadcasters and should be calling these matches live.
So a note to my friends at NBC...
Next year is give the fans live tennis it is what we want and expect. Those who don’t want to see it until later in the day have DVR’s and TiVo’s so feel free to air Wimbledon live honestly you will be rewarded with good ratings.
See you at breakfast in the morning.
Until that time I am going back to Radio Wimbledon and tweeting Nigel Bidmead about their fine coverage.
For more info: Paula Duffy - Sports Examiner; Grayson Blakeley - Pro Tennis Examiner
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