Now that the Winter Olympics is over I have this urge to bitch!!
As usual Taiwan’s sports programming sucks. ESPN has removed it’s SAP feature so now the only language is Chinese. As for the total lack of winter Olympic coverage, I thought ESPN and ESPNstar were sports channels. The sports coverage during the Olympics was the worst programming I have ever seen. Please don’t use the excuse that Taiwan is not a winter country. Taiwan sent a small team to Salt Lake(bobsled/luge) and during the Olympics I have personally watched these sports:
2001 wakeboard championships from South Africa
World Cup swimming(old)
Last year’s World Series
A women’s volleyball tournament from somewhere in Eastern Europe (old)
Women’s gymnastics (old)
Snooker
old tennis
Snooker
go-karting
Skidoo racing
stuff from last year’s winter x-games
World cup skiing from early January
And the best one of all: Iowa state women’s field hockey
(Like come on please!!!)
All I can say is hats of to ESPN and Star Sports!!!
I take my hat off to the Taipei Times for this little tidbit in the sports section today.
“NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE , FORT WORTH, TEXAS, WITH STAFF WRITER
Wednesday, Mar 03, 2004,Page 20
March Madness officially began Monday. Conference tournaments are starting this week, the NCAA bracket will be announced in less than two weeks (March 14) and we’re five weeks away from the national championship game in San Antonio’s Alamodome.
All of this, though, seems to be lost on the producers at ESPN Taiwan, who seem to feel that local viewers can never be shown enough snooker and bowling.”
It’s not just ESPN, but STAR as well. When I lived in Taiwan in the early and mid-90’s, Star Sports showed all the NCAA tourney games from the round of 16 to the final. Now, we get that stocky guy with the beard who does voice over for pro wrestling. :raspberry: :raspberry: :raspberry:
