New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski catches a 22-yard touchdown pass in front of Seattle Seahawks outside linebacker K.J. Wright (50) during the first half of NFL Super Bowl XLIX football game Sunday, Feb. 1, 2015, in Glendale, Ariz. Matt Rourke/AP
By any of the measures that television networks and advertisers care about, Sunday’s Superbowl matchup between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots was a smash. It was the most-watched show in U.S. history, playing in nearly half of the U.S. homes that had TVs switched on, which translates to more than 114 million viewers. Plus, it was a close, entertaining game.
All this amounts to a gigantic win for NBC, one of the networks that pays the league an estimated $3 billion per year in licensing fees. But there’s something about this ratings monster that feels slightly wrong in this age of the internet and Netflix and the growing community of cable cutters.
The problem is the color commentary. At a time when the internet has made it so easy to tailor entertainment to the particular needs and wishes of almost anyone, an entire country of Super Bowl watchers is still forced to hear the same play-by-play call, the same in-game analysis.
To be sure, Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth are good at what they do. It’s just that we should have a choice. We should be able to choose commentary that suits our tastes—and our particular football knowledge. Though NBC and the NFL will likely never do so, they should break the age-old comment-opoly and let anybody call the game. What the SuperBowl needs is a YouTube of color commentary.
We have the technology to do it. It wouldn’t be hard to do with a mobile app that synched up the game’s video stream with hundreds of different channels. Fans, semi-professionals, even haters, could all front their own audiocast of the game, giving us the kinds of gametime companions we love.
We need to trash the boring veneer of impartiality that dulls down today’s NFL broadcasts. Tune into the Seahawks Fan broadcast and hear some real tears at the end of the game. Want to listen to a woman call the game? This is the way that could finally happen. Gamblers’ Super Bowl? No problem. You enjoyed Drunk History? Wait till you try Drunk Superbowl. Personally, I’d go for a data heavy, FiveThirtyEight-style broadcast: the Databack.
Let a thousand flowers bloom in color commentary land. Many will be terrible. But some will be brilliant.
If you’re a fan of Al Michaels and Cris Collinsworth, who called this year’s game, then maybe NBC’s telecast isn’t a problem. Michaels and Collinsworth are classy pros who work with an air of distinguished gravitas that echoes Walter Cronkite. But for many, this seems distinctly out of step with our time. And it makes no sense.
Why on Earth would we expect one single broadcast to work for all types of football fans? Football is one of the most complex, tactically delighting sports around, but explaining what’s really happening on the field would scare off the newbies. So we end up instead with a product that’s too simple for sophisticated fans and yet still incomprehensible for most Europeans.
Of course, we shouldn’t expect the NFL or television networks to mess with it anytime soon. That monolithic audience is perhaps the greatest prize in American advertising. Instead, we’ll increasingly see fans sync up their favorite local radio stations with video feeds (My buddies and I watched the World Series this year on Fox’s video feed, but with audio from KNBR, our local Giants radio station). And maybe someone will come up with a pirate app, that features clandestine game simulcasts.
My dream: some second-tier sport (rugby anyone?) will pick up the model and build a ravenous, diverse, fan base of folks who like to hear sports called in their own way. That would put the Super Bowl to shame.
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