Sunday, April 29, 2007

An Ode to Sideout Scoring

It looks like Friedrichshafen is going to win the finals here in Germany. And may I say, a fitting end to a great season for them. Winning the Champions League, the German Cup and now the Bundesliga title. Okay, they haven't won yet, but it would take a very surprising turn of events for them to lose.

The triple. That sounds pretty good.

Talking to a few people here in Germany, it seems like Friedrichshafen's success could have an effect on volleyball in general throughout the country. More coverage, more sponsors, more money, more fans, more interest. Hopefully it's true.

I've been thinking hard about volleyball the last few weeks. Why isn't it as popular as some other sports? Why aren't our fan numbers growing?

I don't have any real answers, but at some point, I thought to myself, maybe volleyball just isn't that exciting to watch. I mean, it's hard to admit it, being a volleyball player and a lover of the sport, but it's very possible. We've changed the format of the game to be more friendly to television and I guess it's helped in getting volleyball on TV more often. But I still look at the stands and I see an empty arena. We talk about how to "fix" the game so that it is more appealing to more people. The more I think about the idea of "fixing" volleyball, the more disgusted I feel.

I love the game the way it is. Actually, I love the game the way it WAS. I loved sideout scoring. I think that was the coolest thing about volleyball. You had to score a point in your own serve to win a point. And that meant you had to battle for it. Scoring a point was genuinely exciting - for players and for fans - because it was something out of the ordinary, there was a level of difficulty to scoring a real point.

I honestly think that the players have become less interesting since the abolition of sideout scoring. We are more business like, more calm, more focused. Points are easy to come by, all you have to do is sideout, do it 25 times in a row and the game will be over. It's like each team is a big indistinguishable mass of people with no discernible personality because really, what is there to get excited about? Who do people always enjoy watching? Brazil. Why? Because they are the only team that really look like they are enjoying the game. Each point is a celebration. No one else plays that way, no one else has the energy to do it.

I was at a basketball game the other day. And at one particularly exciting point in the game, before I realized what I was doing, I jumped to my feet. It felt totally natural. I was caught up in the moment and I realized afterward that I hadn't felt that way in a long time.

There are only two times where modern volleyball really gets exciting these days. One is when there is a long rally with a lot of great defense. The other is when the score reaches a deuce situation. 24-24 and the teams continue siding out back and forth. That's it.

Let me set the scene for you: Your favorite team is serving, they are ahead 12-10 in the old scoring system, a really good serve is passed poorly by the other team, they set a high ball to the outside who hits the ball well cutting it back to the corner over the setter's head, your position six defender dives to his right and just barely digs the ball with one hand, it comes up high enough for your setter to get under it and make a high set to position 4... This is where I would be feeling that anticipation, that feeling in my stomach, waiting, hoping to see my team's outside make a great swing on the ball and give us a big point to go up 13-10. Can anyone remember that feeling? Am I the only one who used to feel it? In the rally scoring system, this point is still nice, you are still happy to see it as a fan, but it isn't the same. It's just another point. Especially if say, your team wins the point and then goes back and makes a service mistake. All the points mean the same thing and in the end they all kind of blend together.

I recognize the importance of the rally scoring system for the "popularity" of the sport. Of course it is good that the sport is on television more often, but, it seems to me, volleyball was on TV all the time before. I watched because it was exciting then. I watch now because I want it to be exciting.

5 comments:

Unknown said...

Rally scoring i unfortunately the best that FIVB has created to make a volleyball match sellable to TV-networks.

In the old days a match could be 1-3 hours. Now it is more or less between 1½-2 creating more options for broadcastning and editing.

The ups: Eurosport is sending more volley than ever this summer.

The downs: The value of a point have dropped a lot.

Thinking timeouts we also have a problem. There are to many breaks in moderne volleyball with the technical timeouts at 8 & 16 points. But it gives broadcasters an option of selling commercials.

Sad that it als come down to money...

Martin

Anonymous said...

HI Jordan
welcome back

too bad you chose Odense :-)
Skibe

Kasper said...

Good to have you back in Denmark. Will you start updating the blog again?

A few ideas for your next post:

1) The new Marienlyst team looks interesting. Will it be another undefeated season?

2) Just found the news of your transfer at schranni.com. He writes "Alt geht - Jung kommt", then links to a press release where Jens disses your serving and blocking. What's up with that?

3) An ode to the Danish summer.

Anonymous said...

Hi Jordan,

since I'm an Italian volleyball addicted too, I would very much like to have some information about the two US movies about volleyball you seem to know very well: "Sideout" and "Spiker". Do you know how to get them? Ciao. Gianmarco

Jordan said...

Hey Everyone, thanks for the welcome, it's nice to be back.

Kasper, I will be updating again. Starting......today. You've also got some good ideas, I'll try to touch some of those topics in the next couple of weeks.

Gianmarco, I don't know how long ago you posted your comment because I haven't checked the site in a long time. But, in case you check by again, this is what I know about Sideout and Spiker. Sideout is a classic of modern filmmaking, and it is widely available in the US. Finding it here in Europe will probably be very difficult. My best advice if you really, really want to get the movie is to order it from the US Amazon.com site. www.amazon.com and then search for "sideout". It will probably cost a bunch extra to get it shipped and customs, etc... and then it might not play on your dvd player because it will be region 1 encoded. If all that doesn't bother you then you might get to see one of the greatest all time endings in a sports movie. I doubt you will ever find a copy of Spiker. It is kind of the holy grail of volleyball movies. I've only seen one copy ever and it was old and beat up on VHS. So, that one probably isn't going to happen.

Welcome to the blog by the way :)

-Jordan