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During official WotC coverage of Grand Prix they will record a match alongside the main feature and then play it back later at an accelerated speed to fill some space on their broadcast. I like these "timeshifted" features, as I get to squeeze a whole match into a very short period of time. It's quite common that I find myself wanting to fast forward live streams, so it's not surprising that somebody with my temperament would enjoy such matches. Others don't like them quite so much.
Kibler makes a good point with regard to the perspective of the average viewer. You also miss some relevant information in the coverage of these matches, not the least of which being life totals. Not to mention that watching a complex board state at ludicrous speed trivializes many of the decisions being made.
I believe that just removing the timeshifted matches is strictly removing value from the broadcast, but I can see where something else would fit in better. One alternative is replaying previous features throughout the day to fill time like Star City Games does, but then some percentage of your viewers ends up watching the same content over and over and another percentage catches part of a match without being able to see the outcome.
This is still a relatively under-explored aspect of coverage, and I'd be interested to hear about other possibilities to fill this space. Two important things to note when trying to fill this time are that commentators need breaks and that any alternative that would require spending more money on the broadcast would likely be dismissed. That said, what would you like to see in this space?
I’d LOVE some old-school matches. Like from the 90’s. Not sure what content is available from back then outside of the ESPN 2 Pro Tour, but it’d be sweet to watch.
What I want to be able to do is choose which matches to watch, rather than being forced to watch whatever the commentators deemed relevant, and then having to watch only pieces of other matches. I want to be able to either watch several matches simultaneously OR be able to switch between matches instantly. The speeding up of matches is a crucial feature of any sort of recording. Maybe what Kibler actually laments is that he has no control over what is and is not sped up.
I don’t watch Magic streaming as much as some people do so I apologize if I’m suggesting something that’s already being done. How about filling in some time leading to featured matches or whatever with matches featuring the participants in previous matches, maybe even from earlier tournaments where they qualified for the particular event? It would help to tell the story of how these players got where they are and make Magic seem a little more like main-stream sports by mimicking a play-off kind of feel where players/teams A and B got there by beating C and D.
I’d also have to agree with Sigmund that some older content could be pretty sweet. How about showing replays of important or interesting games from previous years’ major tournaments like the Invitationals or World Championships or whatever events really? Show some games where something completely absurd happens and was caught by WotC’s cameras. How about showing a game or two where someone was caught cheating and disqualified from the tournament as a warning to other possible offenders? That has to have happened at least once, right?
I’d much rather they do a “on the street interview” during this down time. Like they could have that guy going around interviewing spectators, pros, dealers, guest artists on opinions of what ever is relevant. Could also be something funny like just asking people who would win in a dog fight ugin vs carebears ya know. Mix it up. This way after the tourney they could just play the leftovers.
They tried this already. No one liked that either.
I like Turbo Matches, but instead of playing at like 6x speed it should play at half that (i.e. 3x).
kind of a weird idea but how about creating an animated series of mtg that tells the various stories of the blocks? currently i use the downtime when watching live to get up, go to the bathroom, do some laundry, fix a meal or do some other chore until coverage starts back.