brewery33

In my humble opinion…

So I decided to take some of the Masters in online this weekend. While I was watching I tooled around on their site. Upon landing on the site I was not surprised by the quality of the site, I mean this is the Masters and most people at Augusta don’t even realize that money is hard to come by these days. While I began to dig deeper into the site I began to find some of the cool tools present. I decided to do a quick hit post about my experience. Let me preface that before you go any further and read my bullet points, I am not a golfer, don’t know anything about golf other than that you hit a ball into a hole, but yes I own a set of golf clubs that Mom bought me at Big 5. So here we go.

1. Pretty heavy site, loads slow.

I did a little research (I viewed the source), and found that the site is built Adobe Flash heavy. While this seems to be the standard for most sites that carry, pardon the pun, flashy animations, it is a resource hog. Plus the iPad owners might have a problem with the viewing, and in my opinion, a perfect use for the iPad. I am not rich so I don’t have an iPad, so my iPad problem is based solely on speculation.

2. Great easy to find statistics

Since the sole reason that I even tuned into the Masters was to see how Stockton’s own Ricky Barnes was faring against the best in world, the ability to easily search the players was much appreciated. I enjoyed that it was kind of real time stats as the current hole was displayed in the player profile along with position and total score (Masters site calls it status).

3. Why only video on two holes

In this day and age and the fact that the members of the Augusta National Country Club have the ability to pay off the national debt and still have money left over, why in hell didn’t they mic and camera every hole. Why be so presumptuous that I would only like to watch holes 15 and 16? Why not give me the option to follow my favorite player? Not only would this be a quantifiable way for the PGA to measure the popularity of the players American Idol style, but it would provide a viewing experience that is individual to each person. The possibility in this notion alone stands to change the sports viewing game. Maybe some big wig will read my stupid writing and bitch slap some of the board members at Augusta, telling them to loosen their grip on the money they love so much and create a user experience that they can sell to every other sport on the planet. You heard it here first, so I am officially taking credit for this idea, because trust me it will happen.

4. All the tools in the Watch Live video server did not work

When I landed on the Watch Live video player and noticed some tools present to customize my experience, I got excited. Then I tried to use them. Yea, they didn’t work. First, I already mentioned the video fascism of only allowing me view holes 15 and 16, but the Hole and Player button didn’t even work. It brought down a container that housed some information about 15 and 16, but I could only view whatever hole Firethorn is. I would have liked to be able to view any hole. That alone would have allowed me follow my favorite golfer through the entire course. The leaderboard button didn’t even work. I liked the picture in picture, but again the elitism of Augusta National permeated the tool as it only allowed for you see what they wanted you to see (Featured Group, Interview(which never worked for me), Holes 15 and 16, and the Amen Corner(Some sort of church reference? WTF)

5. The Masters web coverage is the evolutionary equivalent of Homo Habilis’ use of tools

This is the most diverse sports, if you consider golf a sport, coverage yet. What do I mean? The customization of the viewers experience is driving the broadcasting industry to toy with new technology. Apply this technology to another sport. Could you imagine watching a baseball game and being able to watch inside the dugout, or maybe go to the bullpen cam? What about a penalty box cam in a hockey game to see how bad a dude got messed up during a fight? This is a perfect fit for NASCAR, as the fan could follow the transmissions of their favorite driver. Too bad NASCAR fans think computers are some government conspiracy to become a socialist nation. The work the Masters started during this year’s telecast is only the beginning. I predict that as time goes on, the experience is going to distill into a personalized viewing event for all sports.

I will end with a standing ovation for the Masters. I applaud the innovation, but will nudge my neighbor and say that we still have a long way to go. With the introduction of personal web surfing devices that are pleasurable to look at (iPad reference), the game is changing. I can’t wait to see what MLB will do with the World Series, the NFL with the Super Bowl, the NCAA with March Madness (which by the way killed with this year’s March Madness web coverage), NASCAR with whatever they do with their car races, and the NBA with the Finals.

Mom always said to be nice to the smart kids. Now I know why. Nerds are slowly taking over the way we watch sports.