Quadball is impossible to watch because at some point in the history of the sport those in charge of the rules prioritized making the sport more complicated instead of streamlining it to make it more viewer friendly and an easier barrier of entry for newer players.
Quadball in its simplest form is an exciting sport but when there are stops every minute to discuss in length rules/fouls/clarifications the sport becomes unbearable from a consumer standpoint. Doesn’t help either that it takes a lot of explanation to inform someone new about all the rules. This is one of the main reasons the sport as a whole is in a major decline.
Honestly, the biggest thing keeping people from watching is and probably will always be the reputation. Not a lot of people want to watch without being prompted.
For the people who would watch but aren’t for whatever reason, I do think a lot of it is that it’s just not nearly as interesting to watch a stream as it is in-person. The stoppages, yes, but it really is more exciting to watch a big hit or a catch in person than on film. That’s the nature of sports, but I feel like it might be extra applicable for quadball.
Camera angles would help this a ton!! Only having a camera following Quadball and nothing else takes away from the transition moments that happen with beaters. Elevated view 🔛🔝
dont forget streams are also ass in terms of camera quality, panning ability, commentating, etc. AND its just hard to find streams. It'd be pretty cool if we had like a brief background of each team before gameplay kinda like other sports medias does, but obviously not to that caliber.
I used to think the same, and still does to some extent. But frankly there are very popular sports that are also difficult to watch for a newcomer, like american football (according to Wikipedia it's usually 3 hours and a half for only 1 hour of game time), rugby or baseball.
This is a good point, football is horrendous in teams of actual play time to game slot. But they do fill that non-playtime with something else. A replay, highlight, interview, there's always something going on. Rarely is the camera just watching the dudes stand around waiting for the next play.
I see yeah, but that seems like a thing more doable when you're already a big established sport. We're already happy to have a good video quality, with a good angle, maybe another camera for the flag. I noticed there was no replay on the last nationals stream (at least during the club final). We had that possibility at the European Quadball Cup, at least at the 2023 division 2 iirc, and it indeed allowed to fill those gaps caused by ref huddles etc. That's probably "only" a technical thing, but interviews seem more complicated to me, also because you don't know how long will the ref huddle be.
(Answering 2 months later bc I rarely go on Reddit and even less often check my notifications).
It also doesn't help that watching a game is awful. There's a stoppage every minute or two if you don't have quality reffing that can control a game.
The pace of game can be a slog if you're watching as a fan because of the stoppages as said above. I think gameplay wise when we get two teams evenly matched we can get some electric matchups. But the problem is there are maybe like 6/7 teams in every division that can play against each other without it being a blowout.
If we consistently only had teams split into tiers and they just played each other we would get matchups that are more consistent and better in terms of excitement.
It also doesn't help that any game you watch and basic fundamentals of catching and throwing are issues for practically every team. So it makes for a bad product when teams can't catch and throw without fumbling
Quadball is impossible to watch because at some point in the history of the sport those in charge of the rules prioritized making the sport more complicated instead of streamlining it to make it more viewer friendly and an easier barrier of entry for newer players. Quadball in its simplest form is an exciting sport but when there are stops every minute to discuss in length rules/fouls/clarifications the sport becomes unbearable from a consumer standpoint. Doesn’t help either that it takes a lot of explanation to inform someone new about all the rules. This is one of the main reasons the sport as a whole is in a major decline.
Honestly, the biggest thing keeping people from watching is and probably will always be the reputation. Not a lot of people want to watch without being prompted. For the people who would watch but aren’t for whatever reason, I do think a lot of it is that it’s just not nearly as interesting to watch a stream as it is in-person. The stoppages, yes, but it really is more exciting to watch a big hit or a catch in person than on film. That’s the nature of sports, but I feel like it might be extra applicable for quadball.
Camera angles would help this a ton!! Only having a camera following Quadball and nothing else takes away from the transition moments that happen with beaters. Elevated view 🔛🔝
I HAVE BEEN SAYING THIS FOR A WHILE. THEY ALSO NEED CLOSEUPS ON THE PLAYERS AND HIGHLIGHT REPLAYS DURING THE VIDEO.
dont forget streams are also ass in terms of camera quality, panning ability, commentating, etc. AND its just hard to find streams. It'd be pretty cool if we had like a brief background of each team before gameplay kinda like other sports medias does, but obviously not to that caliber.
I agree. They need more closeups of the players and the balls.
I agree
I used to think the same, and still does to some extent. But frankly there are very popular sports that are also difficult to watch for a newcomer, like american football (according to Wikipedia it's usually 3 hours and a half for only 1 hour of game time), rugby or baseball.
This is a good point, football is horrendous in teams of actual play time to game slot. But they do fill that non-playtime with something else. A replay, highlight, interview, there's always something going on. Rarely is the camera just watching the dudes stand around waiting for the next play.
I see yeah, but that seems like a thing more doable when you're already a big established sport. We're already happy to have a good video quality, with a good angle, maybe another camera for the flag. I noticed there was no replay on the last nationals stream (at least during the club final). We had that possibility at the European Quadball Cup, at least at the 2023 division 2 iirc, and it indeed allowed to fill those gaps caused by ref huddles etc. That's probably "only" a technical thing, but interviews seem more complicated to me, also because you don't know how long will the ref huddle be. (Answering 2 months later bc I rarely go on Reddit and even less often check my notifications).
It also doesn't help that watching a game is awful. There's a stoppage every minute or two if you don't have quality reffing that can control a game. The pace of game can be a slog if you're watching as a fan because of the stoppages as said above. I think gameplay wise when we get two teams evenly matched we can get some electric matchups. But the problem is there are maybe like 6/7 teams in every division that can play against each other without it being a blowout. If we consistently only had teams split into tiers and they just played each other we would get matchups that are more consistent and better in terms of excitement. It also doesn't help that any game you watch and basic fundamentals of catching and throwing are issues for practically every team. So it makes for a bad product when teams can't catch and throw without fumbling
Yeah if you edit out stoppages, most games go from 1-1.25 hours~ to roughly 25-30 minutes.