My last post on the Athens games - promise!
RTE's coverage wasn't bad really. It's not really fair to compare RTE with the BBC as it's plainly obvious that the BBC has a vastly greater budget. RTE's strength was the studio discussions where the sporting events were analyzed seriously, unlike what often happened on the BBC.
One thing that was somewhat irksome was Tim McCarthy's basketball commentary. He called all the games and insisted on referring to the US's Allen Iverson as "Ee-verson". Now, I have no idea how Allen's parents pronounce his name, but I do know that every sports program from the US that I've ever watched or listened to has pronounced the name as "Eye-verson".
I wasn't too concerned about this until Mr. McCarthy felt obliged to lecture us that his pronunciation was in fact, correct and all us plebes were wrong to think otherwise. Until then I just thought he was stubbornly quirky - especially since Sean O'Sullivan who joined him in the broadcasts used the pronunciation that I've always heard.
