Posted by proposal 1 hour ago
(No spoilers please!)
Football is actually really really weird for a spectator sport and, I think, is generally presented very poorly. 80% of the game is deciphering opposing formations to determine what they each are predicting the opposing formation is about to try to do.
Seems like it plays well with vertical video orientation too.
football as a televised spectator sport? trending down. it's not dead, but where growth is measured, it is not good. the cultural thing this guy is talking about in the article, it's going away. fewer and fewer people every year value the aesthetic experience he is describing.
TV ownership? trending down. they've never been cheaper for a reason. trend for TV production since peak TV? down.
football as a gambling product? up. okay, do you see what i mean by bad growth? football mediated as betting stats on apps? up. draftkings, polymarket, ESPN fantasy app ARPPU? up. ESPN streaming app ARPU? down. comcast? hated, down, everyone is cheering for it to go down. do you see?
there is no way to talk about specific instances of football (and stadium sports') cultural weaknesses without sounding really cringe. maybe just, "who cares?"
Do you have sales or survey data to support this claim? I’m willing to believe individual households might be less likely to purchase TVs, but my understanding is that manufacturers are producing as many or even more screens than ever, though that might be for commercial or business use. Incidentally, it’s efficiency from this scale that allows manufacturers to sell televisions at such low prices, not a lack of demand.
However, his claim that a spectator would "automatically reframe what she saw into the way it would appear on television" is never supported other than him saying "trust me, it's true, if you don't believe me you are in the minority".
I tried doing Dota spectating before, and rigged up a mod for Minecraft vlogging/spectating, and concluded it wasn't quite like being at a stadium, or watching it on Twitch in a way that was interesting.
Nah. A one time purchase of a 77" TV with surround sound was absolutely the better option.
The atmosphere was great, cheering with 75,000 other fans is exhilarating, but I haven't felt the need to go again. Soccer, hockey, basketball, baseball, I've all been to multiple times, the Denver stadiums for them are great, and the tickets and concessions aren't too expensive. Football is the only sport I really follow, but I'll never go to another game. The local high school is within walking distance, and a ticket is $5.
I got the TV specifically with the money I redirected from an NFL tickets budget line.
Years ago, TNT for NBA games had this annoying habit during live action where they would follow a player after they scored or whatever and cut back to broadcast view, but it was so late, you would lose considerable amounts of context into the next possession and the players would already be in their actions(sometimes the player being followed would be involved in this action to make it even more stark that you were missing important context).
the NFL, has this pretty much every single play, for a game where the setup matters a lot. they'll cut to the fans, the sidelines, a player's face... and then with a second before the ball is snapped, they'll show the broadcast view, and you'll have to make a quick read into what the offense/defense is showing.
Kinda kept hoping he'd lead there with the funny "fascism" statements, but it never really led to a criticism of the broadcast, and he just kept harping on the same point that anything besides broadcast view is trash, and how he assumes everyone forces broadcast view in their mind instead.
I'm pretty negative about the modern sports broadcast experience, so i guess i was pretty let down seeing an article with a title like this... and instead of it being a critique, it was a celebration of it.
He even kinda setup the point about important context with his skyview cam stuff, and just still comes back to the same point, that broadcast is best...
I also don't wanna pretend everyone would want the same experience I do, but that brings me to another issue i have with the broadcasts in general. The generalist broadcaster is the beloved announcer in modern broadcasts, but it just feels lazy.. why is there not 4 different broadcasts for major games that deliver products catered to casual viewers, enthusiasts, kids? The casual viewer would probably prefer to see a fan wearing a funny hat, but the enthusiast would prefer to see the formation 5 seconds sooner.
CBS Paramount directly explored that space a bit. They experimented with showing the same games on CBS or CBS Sports and on Nickelodeon. The Nickelodeon version would include things like "slime cams" and silly sound effects, you know for kids. (Or for adults watching a playoff game with less interest in who won and more interest in background viewing and distractions from other party topics like politics.) It was an interesting experiment. Possibly something to replicate, but also certainly with as many channels involved in Sports as serious business not something that will be easily replicated.
In Melbourne, Australia, Football is again another sport (but it not being called Footy gives it a way).
Further, the contention of the article is simply that there are many perspectives to a game like (American) football, and every perspective is limited in some way, not receiving the full information of everything happening simultaneously, and this also applies to any video source. Not sure how that relates to fascism, but somehow it apparently does. Regardless, the contention is just as applicable to soccer (aka the shortened name the brits made for Association Football)
For something like baseball, you can basically see everything happening in frame the whole time. But for football, the game is so information dense that you can spend hours unpacking the game afterwards to see what was going on. That's why replays and highlights are so much more satisfying. And that's what makes it fun to analyze and or watch videos during the week - you can find all sort of unique or interesting aspects just watching the same play again and analyzing a different personnel group.
It also explains why cameras are everywhere (besides them being just flat out cheaper for high school games, etc). Film study is a crucial part of the game for players - more than in any other sport.
I remember there being discussion here about coverage of when the NFL first made all-22 available for public viewing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4549832
You definitely lose a lot by not having the close-ups, the slow motion replay, etc. That said, you actually get to see many more of the little things that are kind of cool - what teams do to set up for a play, what coaches are doing between plays, how players and officials interact, etc.