Thoughts on Ariel's new ESPN show?

[mahavishnunj]

Haven't watched it once and found myself not missing Ariel at all after watching his previous show for years.

i feel the same way. i listened to the old show for 5 years or so, completely dropped out about the last year and a half and didnt even notice the big switch. its much easier to read the 2 maybe 3 actual news items on sherdog than it is to listen to a 17 hour show that is basically the same show over and over since the inception.

 

[Joohnmatrix]

i feel the same way. i listened to the old show for 5 years or so, completely dropped out about the last year and a half and didnt even notice the big switch. its much easier to read the 2 maybe 3 actual news items on sherdog than it is to listen to a 17 hour show that is basically the same show over and over since the inception.

Its bizzare though isn't it, all those years we actually listened to it! Looking back I was never mad about the format of the show, far too long! Ariel started making the show about himself the last year or so.

 

[mahavishnunj]

Its bizzare though isn't it, all those years we actually listened to it! Looking back I was never mad about the format of the show, far too long! Ariel started making the show about himself the last year or so.

i used to just zone out peacefully but eventually, even though it seemed like a great time-waster at my shitty job, i thought,'every single interview, no matter who the fighter is...is the same!' at the end of the day, it is what it is, ill fight whoever they put in front of me. it was about 30 seconds out of every 5 hour show that anything remotely meaningful would be said. and on that rare occasion, someone would post it online so now i just waste all that time on other unnecessary podcasts that ill get tired of eventually.
EDIT: this is why i like mmaroasted. adam can be a terrible interviewer sometimes and tries to throw his bits into completely fucking inappropriate places, but he at least asks them about their sex and drug habits and shit you wouldnt hear anywhere else. hes ruining it with kilstein lately, but the regular baroni spots make up for it.

 

[High Altitude]

I’m not on Twitter, so only YouTube, and Ariel/espn is a complete shit show with how it is organized on YouTube, so I haven’t been watching it at all.

Then Luke dropped one of his YouTube shows which is now run by two amateur hour kids and the mma beat turned into the Luke show in which Luke has to try real hard not to let his true personality ruin the show.

 

[HI SCOTT NEWMAN]

Its much harder to find now and its annoying to search every video, because like you said its not all in one video. I don't subscribe to ESPN on youtube because they post sooooooo many videos, like a few every hour and its about sports that I don't care for. it was better when he was on mmafighting, at least its easy for me to subscribe to that and find it

 

[IIIIIIII]

well, i think ariel is noticing the complaints, because he even addressed it at the end of his last show. if i remember right, he basically said, and i paraphrase, "it's a new show, it's supposed to be different?!". well okay, but then don't get upset when people don't like the change. people liked his show for a reason, so when it changes, so will the opinion of others. i think it's not as good as his previous show, but it's not bad in any way. my biggest complaint, is the background. it's just terrible lol.

 

[IIIIIIII]

Its much harder to find now and its annoying to search every video, because like you said its not all in one video. I don't subscribe to ESPN on youtube because they post sooooooo many videos, like a few every hour and its about sports that I don't care for. it was better when he was on mmafighting, at least its easy for me to subscribe to that and find it

yes, that is absolutely true. it's a lot more annoying to have to search every individual video.

 

[HI SCOTT NEWMAN]

yes, that is absolutely true. it's a lot more annoying to have to search every individual video.

Oh my God I hate it so much. so basically what I always used to do is put MMA Hour on and then I would do my work on the laptop and I would be listening to it at the same time, and the video would just run for hours. But now I can't do that, have to keep stop starting all the time.

 

[Doughie99]

Looking back I was never mad about the format of the show, far too long!

ok long boring post........don't tell me "TL;DR" (i'm cool with that, lol!)

I watched MMA-Hour with Ariel all the time on mmafighting.
Now -- not so much. I flip between the ESPN show and the MMAfighting show with Luke Thomas.

TS -- you asked so i'm saying my bit......my reasons :

1) its far too long (nothing changed there!). Shorten it to 2 hours.

2) Live streaming on twitter is simply technically horrible, and vastly inferior to live-streaming on Youtube. It was obvious that ESPN had a contract with Twitter and that Twitter are paying probably a lot of money (now confirmed), BUT ESPN should've said "we have a good budget, we will go with the best live-streaming option" and not IMHO the live-streaming platform that pays the most. Disappointing decision, but they may well have been bound by existing contractual agreements by ESPN.

3) Technically, the entire production has taken 2 or 3 steps back. briefly..... Its not broadcast in 1080p, the lighting is frankly awful (key, fill, backlight, come ON guys, get a lighting engineer in there), the bandwidth that twitter uses to encode live video is FAR too restrictive (compression artefacts constantly), the white balance was laughably off in the first few episodes, audio was bad on the interviews (sounded like AGC engaged), and the set is too small and cheap looking, and the stream buffers too frequently and it's not wifi bandwidth at my end. Technical perspective, the MMA Hour (on mma fighting) is far superior. I watch on a large screen, 17.3inches, so yes it is very obvious to me. If you're watching on a phone or a small tablet, it probably is not visible. Fair enough. I do pro video so yes I notice these things and yes it bugs me slightly. Others it may not matter one bit, fair enough.

4) Cannot pause the video and NO i don't wanna watch it on Periscope.

5) They are now CENSORING the twitter posts (the ones to the right of the live video) and anyone who says "Pls bring this back on youtube" they REMOVE those posts during live broadcast (very likely New York Ric does that role).
I value the concept of free speech, I don't like censorship, it is the *principal* that matters here. Let people say what they want and stop trying to be sycophantic & over-protective of your Twitter contract partners.

I think Ariel moved for a major salary bump (obviously, & Ric too) and he is going to segue into other sports at some point (thats fairly obvious) and that's great for him, good stuff, he is progressing.

But the show needs better production as it looks and feels amateurish to be honest, compared to how it previously was. ESPN : spend more money, increase the budget, blah blah.

 

[Joohnmatrix]

i used to just zone out peacefully but eventually, even though it seemed like a great time-waster at my shitty job, i thought,'every single interview, no matter who the fighter is...is the same!' at the end of the day, it is what it is, ill fight whoever they put in front of me. it was about 30 seconds out of every 5 hour show that anything remotely meaningful would be said. and on that rare occasion, someone would post it online so now i just waste all that time on other unnecessary podcasts that ill get tired of eventually.
EDIT: this is why i like mmaroasted. adam can be a terrible interviewer sometimes and tries to throw his bits into completely fucking inappropriate places, but he at least asks them about their sex and drug habits and shit you wouldnt hear anywhere else. hes ruining it with kilstein lately, but the regular baroni spots make up for it.

Ha ha ha you summaried the weasels show perfectly and sold me mma roasted, I've never got around to watching that yet!

 

[Haj01]

Yeah i find the show quite inaccessible. Have to click on like 5 things just to find it.

When it was on mmafighting it was right there on the main page. Would even come up on my YouTube feed.

It's just a hassle now, tried to catch it yesterday it doesn't even let you rewind on twitter. So if you missed a particular interview you will have to wait for it to be uploaded later. Just not worth it in this digital age. I expect better accessibility not worse.

 

[Takes_Two_To_Tango]

Lame

 

[EXOICHO]

it sucks. MMA hour felt so comfy and like a dude just working for the grind of it. It feels so corporate now, especially with it being on twitter.

I'm also getting really tired of ariel's interviewing style though. he never asks any tough questions and when he does they're usually awkward personal questions that he shouldn't be asking to begin with.

 

[dim_]

I've not watched ariels show at all.

Have watched lukes show, at two hours it's much more tolerable to have on in the background while doing stuff than ariels 7 hour marathons

MMA beat I actual prefer without ariel.

 

[CerebralKnievel]

I suspect a lot of hardcores will be losing interest because 1. it's losing its edge and 2. nobody wants to stream it on the piece of shit Twitter platform, and few casuals will pick it up because it's not a show intended for casuals.

I also feel Ariel is getting extra cocky these days because he feels he's part of the big leagues, and he's starting to throw more shade at others, yesterday he said feels disrespected when people call his "multimedia experience" a podcast, lol. It's ironic he keeps calling UFC Unfiltered "UFC Filtered" because it's "a corporate show when his new ESPN show which beeps every FUCK and SHIT is 10x more corporate.

However, he did say his move to ESPN was so he could try something new, and hinted at doing new sports, which basically confirms what many have speculated: he's using the ESPN opportunity to break into other, more mainstream sports, because deep down he has never been a true combat sports fan, he was pretty much forced into MMA because it was the only thing available to him at the time.

Ariel is delusional. I've never seen his show, but from listening to him during his time with UFC/Fox, I can only say that he lacks the energy and personality to hang with "big league" sports casters (ie. Sports center, Fox NFL, etc...).

Bisping or Chael or even Kenny I could envision long, successful panel careers for, because they make good points and have personality and comfort in the role to be themselves while still being presentable (Kenny the least amongst the three). Ariel, however, is just a stiff, dry dork and his appearance is anathema to athletics. He looks like the jock strap washer, and he backs it up with his forgettable attitude.

 

[209 Life]

I still watch mmafighting. Ariel show is cut into 50 parts on YouTube. I dont watch ariel anymore since he left mmafighting

 

[VVarhead]

Its shit and wtf I can't even watch that shit live I got no twitter.

 

[Verace]

Ariel has been doing his new show on ESPN for a couple of months now, so I think we can get a sense of how things are going. What do you make of it?

Personally I don't like it as much. The interviews are often shorter and there is little general discussion. The fact that it is only live on Twitter and not on YouTube until the following day means the less people catch it live, and so it doesn't capture the same attention. The presentation isn't as good (the intro music is terrible, the lighting on the set is too dark, and for some reason the size of the table bothers me - it's too small, creating the impression that they shoved Ariel in a broom closet). They even bleep out the swearing. When the show is eventually posted on YouTube, it is broken down into individual interviews so you have to keep clicking on the next video and can't watch the whole show. The New York Ric section of the show isn't live even on Twitter.

There are quite a few complaints in the YouTube comments here:



At 27 minutes, Ariel addresses some of the complaints and seems a little sensitive.

He even claims that the show might be 'dead' if not for being broadcast on Twitter. That seems odd to me. New York Ric expanded on it and said that not many people understand that if not for the deal to broadcast on Twitter, the show wouldn't have continued. I don't know what that means. Perhaps ESPN recruited Helwani primarily for pre-fight and post-fight stuff, rather than for his show? And they only agreed to keep it going after making a deal with Twitter to broadcast it. If true - wow.

Helwani even implies that he would like to cover other sports....

Ariel obviously made the sensible decision for himself by going to ESPN, but it would be difficult to argue that the show is as accessible for fans, or as enjoyable, as it used to be. Maybe it will improve in the future. Meanwhile MMA Fighting.com isn't exactly rocking and rolling either. Luke Thomas isn't as good on the MMA Hour, and he gave up his Live Chat long form discussion which is now run by Raimondi and al-Shatti. I find it borderline unwatchable. Don't break up a winning team.

Your post is 99% perfect.

I only disagree that raimidget and shaun are bad. I think they are great. Ive been loving their live chat. Quite frankly, its better than the mma hour now.

Luke is great, but not a good fit for that show. He seems robotic and not fluid. He speaks in a strage tone that sounds nothing like an actual conversation and makes people way less confortable during interviews. Which is strange because i like him on sirius xm.

Ill copy paste below a post i did on the live thread here on sherdog which i think is very relevant:

For sure, but not only that.... His(ariels) post event shows, and pre-fight scrums are buried behind paywalls or hard to find.

Since the move, all content i consume now is his show. And honestly i dont even like the platforms they are on. Its either that terrible twitter stream which i if i need to stop and do something else with my phone it will sometimes not allow me to keep watching from where i was. Then i have to go on spotify and listen to audio only.

It was literally the worst move ever.

I cant blame him if he is getting paid a ton more right now, but i think his value will dwindle with time if the engagement is not there.

Part of me wants ariel to not win journalist of the year this time. He needs to get a grip on how bad this was for everybody.

 

[El Fernas]

Feels the same...but different, for some reason i liked the other studio better, and yeah, its weird they censor the curse words, i only watch it on Youtube.

 

[LouisBolanos]

Ariel is delusional. I've never seen his show, but from listening to him during his time with UFC/Fox, I can only say that he lacks the energy and personality to hang with "big league" sports casters (ie. Sports center, Fox NFL, etc...).

Bisping or Chael or even Kenny I could envision long, successful panel careers for, because they make good points and have personality and comfort in the role to be themselves while still being presentable (Kenny the least amongst the three). Ariel, however, is just a stiff, dry dork and his appearance is anathema to athletics. He looks like the jock strap washer, and he backs it up with his forgettable attitude.

100% I think he will eventually realize how foolish the ESPN move was and how he had no business playing with the big boys. I can see his relationship there crash and burn like it did Fox and him throwing a pity party for himself only this time it steams on Twitter so nobody watches.