The most surprising part of 2003's Super Bowl television broadcast was not that the underdog Tampa Bay Buccaneers routed the favored Oakland Raiders. It was that viewers at home were told exactly why the upset was happening in almost real time by one of the players on the field.
"Every play they’ve run, we ran in practice," Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety John Lynch was heard on the broadcast remarking to a teammate after his key interception. Lynch wore a microphone during the game and his comments were quickly edited and aired as part of a first-time collaboration between ABC and NFL Films.
Lynch’s comments not only provided viewers rare contemporaneous glimpse onto the field, but also underlined how much information the fans at home normally miss during typical tv coverage. Without this special arrangement, the announcers -- and in turn viewers -- would never have known the key to the Buccaneers victory until long after the broadcast.
This season, NFL fans are back in the dark.
Though football is generally thought to be the ultimate television sport, the networks do the most incomplete job broadcasting it of all the four major team sports. The gap between what the fan at home sees and what actually happens on the field is the greatest by far. And the networks have not done an adequate job of trying to close it. That disconnect is due in part to the nature of the game. Much of the pertinent action happens away from the screen, and there is the most on field coaching involved.
Football is usually viewed as a physical and instinctual game – basically gigantic men chasing after a smaller, faster man holding the ball. But it is actually the most strategically complex of the major sports involving the most preparation before a game and coaching during it. Not only does the offense have its plays, but the defense also has intricate schemes. According to the NFL coaches and other insiders I’ve spoken to, the typical tv broadcast provides viewers with about 10-20% of what’s actually going on. Strangely, the networks seem to be satisfied to miss so much. Fans don’t complain because, to paraphrase Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s much paraphrased comment about another male video obsession, they don’t know what they aren’t seeing.
The tv sports divisions obviously believe that fans don’t want to know any more. Baltimore Ravens coach Brian Billick is one of the growing number of those inside the game who say they’re wrong. "I’ve long advocated to the networks that I think they underestimate how much the fan is interested in the nuances of the game and the X’s and O‘s," argues Billick who contends that broadcasts focus too heavily on the emotion and personality aspects at the expense of strategic analysis.
Billick is part of a new generation of coaches who think that the league should open up the black box of football strategy. Another one, New York Jets Coach Herman Edwards, even invited journalists to a day-long ‘behind the scenes’ seminar when he first joined the team. Each of his coaches provided a cram course on tactics and showed the type of insider video that the media -- and the public -- never see. He even took reporters onto the Jets’ practice field and ran them through practice drills (after getting the requisite legal releases signed, of course). One of the reasons for doing so, according to Edwards, is that even the most experienced members of the sports press do not fully understand the NFL game largely because teams don’t tell them the full story.
Without full information, television announcers are too often are reduced to guessing. Often, the key question is whether a mistake is coaching strategy or player execution. Was the quarterback at fault or the wide receiver? On defense, was the touchdown catch the responsibility of the safety or the cornerback? Football is unusual in this regard. In the other major sports, it is easy to figure out who screwed up. Nevertheless, it is amazing how many times the announcers give fans either no idea or the wrong one. Brian Billick objects to the fact that these miscalls then become the narrative in the local media and talk shows the following week.
Exacerbating the knowledge gap is that broadcast crews do not follow the teams on a daily basis like the announcers in other sports. Instead, they parachute into a different city each week. In many cases, they don’t know the teams as well as the viewers watching the game. To make up for lack of familiarity with the teams they will be covering, announcers rely religiously on their pre-game meetings with the coaches and players. But rarely are those conversations really helpful to the viewer. Generals before battle are more forthcoming. It’s usually platitudes ("Coach Billick told us last night how impressed he was the Dolphins defense.").
So, how do you open up the hidden game of football, the most hidden of games, to the fans? The first step would be to significantly expand the idea of last year’s Super Bowl experiment better integrating available real-time audio and video far more into coverage. That means getting more access to the communications between players and coaches on the field and those in the press box booth, the nerve center for in-game strategy and tactics.
NFL Films has miked players and coaches during the games for years. But until the use in the Super Bowl, no one had tried to actually use the information while the broadcast was taking place to inform the viewers.
Brian Billick says the networks need to better use the sideline and end zone cameras -- the so-called ‘coaches tape’ which show all 22 players at once -- into their coverage. The networks’ video presentation is generally good, but they only follow the ball. As a result, the most revealing shots filmed on Sunday are rarely shown on Sunday.
Fans are often shown close ups of the players talking on the telephone with their coaches and examining Polaroid overhead shots, but we are never told what they are discussing. At present, the only contact with the coaching staff viewers get during the game is the contentless half-time ‘interview’ that provides helpful info as often as the Arizona Cardinals win games.
Improving coverage without increasing production budgets means reallocating resources.
First, that would mean moving sideline reporters off the field. Rarely if ever do they impart any information to the viewer that couldn’t have been as easily passed on by the announcers in the booth. Instead, the networks should assign an analyst to listen in to the coaches audio traffic, monitor the sideline and end zone video and then integrating all of that new and valuable info into the play-by-play coverage (obviously without giving away secrets).
Some in the booth agree that the gap between what happens on the field and what gets on air should be narrowed. Brent Jones, a former NFL tight end and now a CBS analyst, says it’s frustrating how little information can be transmitted to the fans on the broadcast. "Television network executives and the NFL should get together and figure out how to get more of it to the viewers."
ABC's Super Bowl executive producer Fred Gaudelli said he faced opposition when he had the idea of using player audio during last year‘s game. But the NFL ended up liking the idea, because fan reaction was so positive. The networks should approach one of the more media-friendly coaches like Brian Billick to participate in more extensive integration experiment. If the fans like the idea, then the NFL would push other coaches to follow suit.
It's worth doing, though there are some challenges. Jerry Rice was the Oakland Raiders' player miked by ABC during last year's Super Bowl. Not happy with his team's performance, he returned to the lockerroom and flushed his microphone down the toilet.
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