FSPA vs PPL League Challenges on PAPA.tv. Watch 'em. Love 'em. Those two challenges were amongst my most fun pinball experiences ever.
Vuvuzelas, people!! 
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This is an interesting thought. A lot of the pinball broadcasts have been three casters now: is that a liability? I do think two people are less likely to talk over one another than three, though the right group of three can do quite well.
Also I tried to tell you to hype MORE at Pinburgh, and that the speakers weren’t a problem, but you ignored me 
Next time, MORE HYPE, but not like BBH Guy. We want people to be having fun and screaming for players, too!
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The “right” three casters can be much smoother, more informative, and more entertaining than the “wrong” two casters… same in pinball as in any other sport. (I watch NFL, and there are some caster teams that I love and some I abhor.)
One advantage of multiple casters in pinball is that, as a practical matter, not every caster is going to have deep knowledge of the subtle nuances of every distinct machine… but with a deeper caster pool, the odds go up of being able to talk in detail about a particular machine. This can actually be beneficial to the broadcast: the (truly) less-knowledgeable casters for the current game can act as “straight men” (or women), asking basic questions of the more knowledgeable caster(s), because the reality is that much of the audience will be wanting to ask those same basic questions.
This points to one of my personal issues with the current caster situation in pinball competitions… it often seems to be last-minute. This is often by necessity, as frequently the casters for an event are competitors in that event who bombed out. As @chesh correctly states, the ultimate would be if the caster crew was dedicated to broadcasting… but failing that, it’d be great to get a little advance notice. Just speaking for myself: I usually sign up for the casting crew the night before finals if I don’t make it in myself. The usual response is “you’re on the list, we’ll figure it out tomorrow”… which means I go to bed not knowing if I’m actually on the casting crew, or even what the finals games will be. It’d be super helpful to instead be told (the night before) “thanks, you’ll be casting the A semi-finals starting at ~ 5 PM, the games will be W, X, Y, and Z.” I could then use the evening to brush up on all the nuances of those machines. (I typically know basics of every machine, but would gladly brush up on the details of the finals machines if I knew what they were. This requires trust that the casters won’t leak the finals games to their buddies.)
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It can’t be ignored that the way top notch live broadcasts happen is with tons of research and support for the casters. The on camera folks are being fed information… they have the notes and data on standby, etc. the game coverage is supported with pre-made content like interviews… the timing of things is linked and prepared for so things flow well.
The broadcast teams are pros for a reason
Prep prep prep
The “party atmosphere” is something they chose when promoting this event… I don’t think that is really essential to what you are trying to follow here… which is how to provide compelling coverage of an event. No one is asking a soccer player their drinking preferences for the game…
Commentary needs to provide the filler around what we see… not just repeat what we saw. The context… the impact… the consequences. That’s why things like the overall scoreboard missing from papa was such an issue for so long.
Allowing the prep, supporting with more than just the live feeds (like papa tv did with the pinburgh event) are all moves in the right direction.
The “players need silence” thinking needs to go away if you ever want a live audience event that has energy.
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The Heads Up Championship, or something like it, would be a good place to buck the trend here. A lot of the skill is being able to perform under pressure and with limited time. I see no reason that there shouldn’t be pressure inducing play-by-play commentary blaring out of speakers that the competitors can hear. (Well, maybe not “blaring”).
I guess the solution to getting professional commentary is to have the money to pay for it. I’d love to help make commentary better, but who am I kidding: I’d much rather be playing in the events.
Is it at all feasible to have the commentary be done remotely? Could we have required players to fill out a survey ahead of the heads up tournament that would give some talking points to the commentators? Is it feasible to have a “runner” at the tournament whose job it is to communicate information with the broadcast team that they can’t acquire sitting at a desk across the room?
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I have thoughts on my preferred game to watch streaming tournaments of, Street Fighter. I don’t want to derail from BBHD discussion, but if you’re interested I think you could learn a lot from comparing these two videos:
First is Street Fighter V finals from Evo 2017, big arena at Mandalay Bay, it’s the biggest event of the year. I was there, amazing. It was broadcast on ESPN, there were local crowd commentators, and there were separate stream commentators. This is the stream version, so what was on Twitch:
Obviously a big event with a budget and stage etc. But commentary is commentary, you don’t need to rent out a Vegas arena to have good commentators. (Paying them though, that helps!) So pay attention to how they cover the match, do transitions, etc.
Then compare to this:
This is top 8, Street Fighter V, same world class players, but at a local event. This is a hotel room, not an arena. Good streaming crew, it’s well done, but not crazy budget. And my main point here is realize how close the two are when it comes to actually showing gameplay and covering the players.
I think pinball streaming would be well served by checking out what other folks are doing, to level up. And I’d love to see that happen, because I’d love to see the success that would come with it.
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This, all of this.
The pool of “players who have the knowledge to broadcast” and “players who have the skill/ knowledge to play big matches” are almost the same.
As someone who has thought about what it would take to move into the caster booth, I am happy to see that there’s some serious thought into dedicated casting. I’m 25, still working a humdrum job, and don’t have the money to drop of my own to travel and do volunteer work for shows. If there was compensation for travel/some amount of pay for working a gig I can definitely see there being a few candidates!
If there’s a way to foster a local casting group in Pittsburgh there’s a lot of organic ways to train/develop skills as well - PAPA TV Live, potentially PPL broadcasts, maybe a new show. Get a team with hands-on experience so that they are ready for anything that happens and build a level of synergy working together.
If there’s a dedicated group, would it make sense to go to 2 doing PBP and another 1-2 doing between- round content?
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Part of the solution would be to incorporate the process into the event/participation. As part of the schedule before the playoffs, finalists would go through a media round where they would get interviewed, profiled, etc. But this would have to be done early enough to allow the information to be processed, edited, etc. Finalists would be expected to participate as part of their entry, etc. The problem is this stuff takes time and labor… and both are things events are thin on.
But to take things to the next level - you really need to get people interested in the players and their journey IMO.
I started watching the first video last night, and was still watching an hour later (despite not enjoying fighting games and never having seen Street Fighter V before).
A great broadcast. A short primer on some of the things they talk about (resources, etc) would have been helpful, but even without that, they did a great job. It was amazing to me some of the things the commentators picked up on despite the frenzied pace. It was really smooth how the commentators would basically just trade off between each other. Almost as if one would take a few breaths while the other kept up with the action. They almost never talked over each other, except perhaps in exclamation form: “Oooohhhhh”.
But, regular pinball is just not that exciting nor fast paced enough. Our only hope is things like the Heads Up Championship…or perhaps non-live, edited versions that show only the important balls / moments / moves, etc. A bit like poker.
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It’s not, but I think it could be presented and formatted better to at least come closer to it.
I like pinball! But I’ll be honest, watching a long dragging 4 player game just doesn’t hold my interest enough to want to tune in live to a stream. And that’s coming from a pinball fan. I think the barrier to entry is way higher for a casual viewer.
I haven’t had a chance yet to see what Karl’s last stream looked like, he told me it would be closer to fighting game tournament stuff, so curious to check that out.
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Just to address this separately (glad you enjoyed) whatever the format is like (obvious it will never be the same as a fast paced one on one fighting game) that should be the goal I feel like. That someone who’s not a fan, and doesn’t necessarily understand what’s going on can tune in and an hour later still be watching.
Think about pinball newbs you’ve taught, they all have similar reactions. “There are rules?” kind of stuff. How can you make the game accessible to new watchers, while keeping the commentary deep and interesting enough for players?
They say all publicity is good publicity . . . the higher ups here are having a hard time swallowing this one.
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To be clear, Jerad spent an entire year qualifying for this, and was almost incoherently drunk just moments after finishing a match? Yikes.
Jerad rules! He bought me a shot
He didn’t play in the competition. His wife was there playing. He was hanging out at the bar.
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I think from a commentary end, it has helped in commentary I’ve been involved in if there’s someone in the booth that genuinely doesn’t know a game that well - usually they throw out the questions and it flows naturally. To step into internalizing those prompts on the other hand is a move that we have to take on as a whole.
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The couples that form… blow my mind at times
But, like, I really think they should.
Imma be in touch in the near future. I have some thoughts I want to discuss with you and James.
We’ve really wanted to do this, but editing is so f’ing time consuming that we’ve been unable to devote anyone to it.
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