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One of my favorite things about ESPN Classic, besides a significant dearth of Steve Levy appearances, is watching the antiquated ways in which sports were presented on television through the years. From the minimalist early days of the NFL to the slow advance of garish graphics on baseball broadcasts to the optical innovations of the NBA's coverage, the evolution of sports on television is a fascinating study.
Of course, if you ask ESPN, it's more about intelligent design. The network loves to brand its camera angles and graphic elements, as if it reinvented the wheel each time. That over-the-field camera in the NFL - that ESPN stole from the XFL, a league it refused to cover professionally - has its own brand name. The batter swinging several times in slow-motion has a name. And now we have the latest innovation: ESPNU Full Circle, which debuted last week in the Duke/North Carolina game. Like NASCAR, which gives you cameras in each car, in the pits, wherever you want to go, ESPN provided three channels with three different perspectives on the game: the traditional half-court camera on ESPN; the "Above the Rim" camera on ESPN2; and a camera just on the Duke student section on ESPNU. Essentially, it's the dawn of the total access pay-per-view era in basketball, only it's on expanded basic cable until the training wheels come off. This concept is nothing new. It's been talked about for years in the NFL, where broadcasting pioneers wanted to have PPV channels dedicated to offense, defense and certain star players. ("Filmed in Vick-o-Vision!"). Seeing it applied to basketball was interesting.
I have no issue with the idea: for what we pay, they should have 25 channels for each game, with at least four dedicated to the cheerleaders. But the execution was a little troublesome. In other words, I'm still taking motion sickness pills for that "Above the Rim" camera angle.
If you didn't see the game, basically we're talking about a camera mounted on the backboard that follows the ball-handler down the court and can quickly move to another player on each pass. It literally can follow a guy from the top of the key as he drives to the basket and dunks the ball. That part's pretty cool.
But boy, does that thing have to whip around a lot to catch the action. There was a pass under the basket by Duke that caused such a jarring motion in the camera that I felt as disoriented as a Cosmonaut plummeting back to Earth in a space capsule.
Maybe I'm a traditionalist at heart, or a creature of habit at worst, but I watched the ESPN half-court feed more than anything else during the game. I think there's a fatal flaw with the "Above the Rim" concept, and it has everything to do with JJ Redick.
The camera follows the guy with the ball, but more importantly it doesn't follow the guys without the ball. So the camera is focused on a guy like Redick instead of the guy setting a pick for him. Plus, this angle helps solve one of television's greatest mysteries when it comes to winter team sports: how to film a player from the front, rather than the side. What a great marketing tool this camera concept is - unless your superstar is butt-ugly, I guess.
But is focusing on the ball-handler actually watching basketball? Maybe to the casual fan. For people who have logged decades watching the NBA and NCAA, and for those that have played the game, it's what's happening around the ball that really makes a game entertaining. I get more joy watching a play develop than watching a guy make a shot. With "Above the Rim," you can't see a guy make a baseline cut from the outside because the camera's on the point guard dribbling at the top of the zone. It'd be like watching an NFL game with the camera trained solely on the quarterback and never showing the offensive line or his running backs.
These camera innovations are, in a way, a reaction to what's happening on X-Box and Playstation. The camera dangling over the football field? "Madden." The camera on top of the backboard? Another sports video game trademark. It's a good thing sports broadcasters weren't slaves to this trend 15 years ago, or Gene Larkin might have had to jump over a mushroom before winning the 1991 World Series - and saving the princess.
Look, the youth market is significant. I get that. But as a great man once asked, "Is our children learning?" What kind of fan will come from not seeing the entire court during a basketball game? Who will actually learn about the sports they're watching if the game is being presented in "Cameron Crazies Cam?"
I don't think the traditional presentation of sporting events will die off, even as these innovations are implemented.
And sometimes what seems like a great modernization is actually a train-wreck.
Say, didn't someone just write a book about that?
-SFM-
Published on the web and www.SportsFanMagazine.com since 1997, "The Jester's Quart" is a weekly satirical look at sports, pop culture and why NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman is a jackass. Columnist Greg Wyshynski is the Senior Editor for SportsFan Magazine in Washington DC, and the Senior Sports Editor for The Connection Newspapers of Northern Virginia. His book "Glow Pucks and 10-Cent Beer: The 101 Worst Ideas in Sports History" can be ordered now. Email Wyshynski at jestersquart@hotmail.com.
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