As we move into the full streaming era, it will be interesting to see how this evolves. On broadcast you either need to sacrifice the legacy audio feed or you need to split the broadcast across 2 channels. Both of which run afoul of the advertising business.
With subscription apps it’s trivial to introduce alternate audio feeds. They could theoretically include a national announcer feed, both local radio feeds, and a clean essential audio/stadium feed on the same video feed ensuring that everything is in sync and the viewership is still effectively consolidated.
Perhaps the only real headwinds will be the sense of control that the broadcaster likely thinks that have by owning the “conversation”. But the flip side is that it would lower the perceived value (and associated salary) that goes with the big name talking heads.
I think it’s clear that you do need this based on your comments. What you mean to say is that you don’t want to learn this, which is a fine prerogative to have, but the NFL knows that they need to educate young audiences if they want to replace aging viewers and expand the audience. As we’ve established a deeply educated fan base is good for the product in the long run.
This is true. But I reject this as a criticism of football specifically. Certain rules in almost every sport are largely subjective and arbitrary. In the NBA traveling and fouls are even more capricious than things like holding and pass interference in the NFL. And the NBA suffers from a more extreme version of player specific bias than the NFL, aka the star treatment. In the MLB balls and strikes are basically divination at this point, and yet older fans cling to it as a core part of the game. And the strike zone affects every single pitch making a near constant bit of subjective noise to the “rules”. Hockey has its own issues with holding, cross checking, high sticking, icing and loads of other situational calls where the refs judgment is all that matters.
The NFL is without a doubt the most rule bound sport, which is fair to dislike, but there’s yet to be invented a sport that doesn’t often feel arbitrary in the application of the rules. The NFL, because of the aforementioned stoppages, simply allows the most room for these decisions to be second guessed and argued.