Football- “Wide Receiver Cam”–after the snap, on one of the corners of the TV, show mini boxes of all the receivers as they run their routes, up until someone catches a pass or its obviously a running play. Every time all we as a viewer gets to see is the QB backing up, and then the receiver is revealed when the camera zooms out after the pass is thrown. BEFORE the pass, I want to see who is open, who is being covered etc etc, not find out in the replay after.
Hockey- More graphics on line changes. I think Fox used to do this, but not very well. Well timed line changes, as well as knowing who is currently matched up against who on the ice is very important to the game, but you really have to pay a distracting amount of attention while watching a game to keep track. I have a simple solution: in the scorebox, next to the team, just list what offensive and defensive line is out there by number. For instance, if the Flyers 1st offensive line and 3rd defensive line is currently on the ice against the Penguins 2nd offensive and 1st defensive line, list “1-3” next the Flyers, and “2-1” next to Pittsburgh. For powerplay or penalty kill lines, just put a P in front of the number.
I think with all the big screen TVs out there, these would work. What would be your ideas?
I think this would work better in college sports, but have a three man booth. One person does play-by-play, and the other two are obvious homers for teams that are playing, but not obnoxious about it.
This way, when plays happen or certain players do things, the color guys would be able to put it into context better and explain the bigger picture that fans never know, plus it would inject some true excitement into the game
Here’s a super obvious one: In football broadcast, from the standard press box cameras (viewed from above the sideline), they put the line of scrimmage on the center of the screen. So you end up having about a quarter of the screen behind the quarterback wasted - there’s no action there. Instead, you should put the center of the screen a few yards to the right of the line of scrimmage, that way the quarterback is near the end of the screen and more of the downfield action is shown.
I suspect the reason they do this is that there are a few hold-outs with 4:3 TVs and without the extra horizontal space this method would cut off the quarterback on deep drops sometimes. Can’t the broadcaster choose where to pan and crop the 4:3 broadcast, though, rather than put it in the center?
They should just use the SkyCam more. It’s such a powerful tool and they use it only a few times a game. I want the full Madden experience, seeing plays from behind the QB and showing the entire width and depth of the field.
I remember ESPN doing this at least once last year. I seem to recall that the setup was that Dan Dakich was behind the Indiana University bench offering insight and context from a coaching perspective (he had been a player, assistant, and interim coach for the Hoosiers) while another analyst (also a former coach) was behind the other team’s bench doing the same. It was pretty interesting and didn’t get in the way an awful lot.
College basketball - turn up the mics for the play-by-play announcers, turn down (or off) all the mics used to capture crowd noise, slam dunks, etc. Often times I can barely hear the play-by-play over all the background noise.
There was a “golden age” of NFL broadcasting when HDTV first came out. The were still framing the shots for the traditional 4:3 screens so those of us with 16:9 got to see a lot of the route running. Maybe not deep receivers covered by safeties but definitely all the short to mid range routes.
Then when they decided most people had 16:9 screens they zoomed in so all you could see was the QB and the offensive line again. It was great while it lasted.
Maybe someday they’ll offer the “All-22” camera concurrent with the regular broadcast. I think to see it now you have to subscribe the the NFL’s replay service.
All sports: put the score in the top center of the screen, not the top left as is often the case. If you happen to be on an SD television, the left part of the score disappears.
I can’t stand this camera. It pans around too much, and everything looks distorted to me. I especially hate it for field goal attempts. It’s so much easier to see the ball’s trajectory with the standard end zone camera.
When they say the broadcast starts at 7:00, start the game at 7:01 or 7:02, not 7:10 or even 7:15 like they often do. Alternatively, just tell us what time the game actually starts. I don’t need to hear the mindless babble before the game.
Oh man, when I lived in Indy Dakich had a local radio show I would listen to on my way home from work and I loved that show. He seemed wonderfully insightful for all sports (basketball included) and was a great homer. He loved IU, but his criticism of the school (this was before the Crean years, when they nabbed the newest Zeller kid) was also sound and rational.
I think it was TBS that, during the recent MLB playoffs, somehow managed to have a heads up display that did NOT always include the pitch count. (If I recall correctly, they were briefly showing it after each pitch, having it alternate with the pitch speed or something.) That’s pretty inexcusable in this day and age. I should never, ever, have to wonder what the pitch count is while watching a baseball broadcast.
TBS did something similar to this 2016 March Madness Final Four with “homer” broadcasts simultaneously on different channels; for instance, on truTV you might get Villanova v North Carolina but with Brian Finneran, a Villanova football alumnus doing color with his play by play announcer, then on lets say TNT you’d see the exact same game but with a Tar Heels honk doing color there. They’d only interview their teams players and coaches during the game, too.
OR, you could tune into CBS or whatever it was for the straight down the middle broadcast. It was a lot of fun and got good feedback from the viewers.
Also, if you are scheduling multiple games on the same station, space them apart enough so that game 1 is over before game 2 starts. I hate tuning in to watch a basketball game and missing most of the first half because the football game on before it still has 10 minutes left in the 4th quarter.
