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I think it’s Seven Sport’s Geoff Masters calling here for their World Feed on the 2006 Aus Open, a Federer match in a memorable year:
https://x.com/TvRFTennis/status/1745553766797967402?s=09
I actually love Masters’ commentary, always have and think he’s underrated, would be one of the best, just reads the play so well, obviously has a great mind (not just a great player especially doubles but a top coach and at the Qld Academy too working with the likes of Stosur and Tomic back when they first started and actually played well).
Anyone know when he started his commentary career, at least 25 years ago maybe longer, probably around the time John Fitzgerald also joined Seven’s team.
I like Fitzy, but he’s just too ‘matey’, drifts into chatter “yeah, so whatta ya reckon there eh, Jim [Courier]?” …Who gives him nothing.
And Roger Rasheed is just too odd-ball.
Of course legends like Garry Wilkinson and Allan Stone are always still great to hear.
Sandy Roberts, John Barrett, Bruce McAvaney are all gone (I don’t mean dead!!), but I think JA is still around (doing ABC and also IIRC was on world feed last year?) and they are icons, Barrett got a bit annoying after a while though, think it was that accent!
And you’ve got the now mainstayers who went across to Nine or TA, like Todd Woodbridge, Courier, Sam Smith (she’s very good but also gets annoying and I preferred Kerryn Pratt and Liz Smylie), Tracy Austin they had there was also solid but that Yank accent was grating.
Not sure if @OnAir or anyone else has any answers or thoughts.
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Gordon Bray (more commonly known for his rugby commentary) appearing as the stadium voiceover at the 2004 Australian Open, during this match between Mark Philippoussis and Mario Ancic. This role would later be claimed by Craig Willis.
Courtesy: Grant B
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Yeah Bray was on Seven Sport’s Aus Open in the early 2000s (maybe even late 90s?) Recall he also did court interviews after matches, etc A role Todd Woodbridge from 2006 (and others like Hamish McLachlan from 2008) would assume
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If I recall correctly, FIFA changed the way the rights were being sold (only for one of the companies involved to go belly up in the lead-up to the World Cup). Nine were interested because of the timezone (and I recall a Socceroos team in decent form) and picked up a dozen or so games with the remainder going to SBS (but that deal was so late that they had to do their coverage from Australia).
The Anti-Siphoning rules at the time made it difficult for it to end up on Foxtel and it looked at one point that we’d only get the Nine games. SBS’ deal was signed not much more than a month before the tournament started.
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To date, 2002 is the most recent time the Socceroos have failed to qualify for a FIFA World Cup. Of course, we all know the turning point that came not long after…
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Yeah, I always got the impression that Nine were banking on Australia qualifying, which unfortunately for everyone (except Uruguay) did not come to pass.
So they, like every other commercial network, tapped out of hosting 2006 (also as you say, Korea/Japan was a friendlier timezone that Germany) which they may have regretted given the Socceroos did end up qualifying and making the round of 16.
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The first time it had been in a ‘friendly’ timezone (by it being the first Asian-hosted tournament) was seen as a factor in driving up interest as well. FIFA’s selling all the rights to ISL to then be sub-licenced made recovering the initial outlay important.
Nine did their deal before it had been confirmed whether Australia had qualified or not - our form (outside of the Oceanian qualification tournament which is almost meaningless) had been good and the results in South America looked like we’d have a tough, but not insurmountable opponent for the last spot.
SBS had expected it to be a formality that they’d get the rights - they’d done so for tournaments prior and had cultivated a relationship with FIFA that gave rise to the thought it would straight forward.
Nine ended up going for blockbuster games hoping that they’d get some return on their investment (which was ad-free during play per FIFA requirements)
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And they still managed to delay a game into Adelaide. The Italy match, was 30mins delayed, while the rest of the country got it live.
It brought protests outside the old nine building by fans.
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Clipped an opener for Friday Night Football (NSWRL Style) in 1991
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Can anyone clarify channel 10’s NSWRL rights from the late 1970s/early 1980s?
I understood 10 had rights to the midweek cup from the mid 1970s, and later got rights (that were previously held by 7 with Rex Mossop) to a delayed Sunday premiership game in 1983.
But I’ve found games on YouTube covered by 10 (with Ray Warren calling games) from for example 1980 and 1982 that aren’t midweek cup games - so my understanding isn’t quite right.
I’d be grateful for any advice.
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There is a little bit here - Some History of NSWRL/ARL/Superleague/NRL TV Rights - Sports Industry AU
Wasnt it the NSWRL rights that helped plunge Ten into trouble in 1989/90?
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Thanks but doesn’t help with my specific question
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10 and ABC shared the Saturday replay from 1980-1982.
As far as I can gather ABC showed LIVE in regional areas but replay in METRO areas. 10 showed the replay from 6-7:30. This ceased early in 1982 and moved to late Saturday night and then the replay was moved to be shown as part of SportsWeek (their Sunday morning sports show).
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Thank you. Do you know when ABC’s Saturday coverage began?
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1999 Australian Open on Seven (also the host broadcaster), a R1 encounter featuring Agassi, during the day on Centre Court at Melbourne Park:
Host: John Fitzgerald, Commentator: Sandy Roberts, Expert Commentator: Wally Masur, Courtside: unknown, interviewer: Craig Willis. Sponsors: Ford and Heineken.
Full credit: Rewind Tennis Collection, YT
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Those graphics were Seven’s non-animated version - like the AFL, they introduced animations into the tennis and golf coverage in 1998/99… but didn’t use the animated score-bug until the Aus Open itself (and then, like the AFL, they only had one animation setup). The early tournaments (Sydney Int’l et al) looked like what you posted.
Yet, kinda like the AFL graphics of 1999, they got enough complaints about the level of animation (and in this case, the score-bug always being there during a game) that they toned it down to only show between points.
Example from the women’s semi between Martina Hingis and Monica Seles:
The score-bug initially just showed the players’ names and the lower line of set number and game score (the point boxes flipped over on each point), which then “opened up” to show the match score on occasion. I don’t know why they chose to put just the set number on the collapsed graphic as it seemed pointless without context.
As in that video, once they killed most of the animation (at some point in the second week from memory), they just left the match score “open”, which back then was unusual but helped with that context thing.
The world feed didn’t use that score-bug so finding a video that used the entirety of Seven’s graphics (as opposed to those using what I think must’ve been Eurosport’s feed, or ESPN’s own for the US) in the early rounds wasn’t very fruitful from an admittedly short search.
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At least this was before the scorebug went to initials for the players, where if you didn’t know who at least one of the players was meant you were lost for a while until you saw the whole scoreboard between games.
2003 Fox Footy Channel Saturday Night Football Intro
Capped it from a replay currently airing as I haven’t seen it in high quality before online.
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