Television broadcasts for NFL and college football games try to cover nearly every possible angle.
From a visual standpoint, cameras are placed throughout the stadium now, even over the field, in the goal-line pylon, and at the first-down marker. In terms of analysis, broadcasts employ former referees as rules experts to interpret why and how certain calls are made.
Why isn’t the same depth of information and attention to detail being provided to viewers when it comes to analytics?
Advanced metrics and data have a growing influence on decision-making by coaches, leading to sometimes baffling decisions regarding whether or not to punt on fourth down, opting for a two-point conversion instead of kicking an extra point, and choosing to go for a win rather than a tie during regulation time.
Yet with an opportunity to explain what factors go into such decisions during a game — or even earlier, during game-planning — TV analysts and their play-by-play broadcast partners often shrug their shoulders and chalk up anything they don’t understand, that the viewing audience is likely also questioning, to “analytics” without providing any sort of explanation.
Football broadcasters should do better than this. And there’s no reason why they can’t.
A notable example of a broadcast team failing fans watching their game occurred during Fox’s telecast of Penn State at Michigan this past Saturday. With less than a minute before halftime, the Wolverines were down 14-13 with the ball on the Nittany Lions’ 11-yard line. Facing a third down with two yards to go, the question became Michigan would do if the offense didn’t get a first down.
Would coach Jim Harbaugh go for it on fourth down and risk finishing the possession with no points and a halftime deficit? Or would he kick a field goal and give Michigan the lead going into the locker room?
Valid arguments could be made for either choice, but play-by-play announcer Gus Johnson asked analyst Joel Klatt, “I don’t know, what do the analytics say?” And at least a few observers noted that Johnson seemed to ask the question with some disdain as he added, “That’s how they make all the decisions now.”
“I’ll just say this, I don’t know exactly what the book says,” Klatt responded. Asked what he would do, Klatt said he’d take the points and kick a field goal.
But why doesn’t Klatt know “exactly what the book says”? Is that question posed when the Fox broadcast crew meets with Harbaugh or any of the other football coaches they cover during a season? Do coaches believe that their analytics is proprietary information that they don’t want to share with a broadcast? Is there a fear that it will somehow expose strategy?
How is this considered adequate analysis? Several sports media observers took issue with how the analytics question was handled by Saturday’s Fox broadcast.
Years ago, commentators would have said that they didn’t know what a referee was looking at when calling a particular penalty. So what did producers do? They hired former officials like Mike Pereira and Dean Blandino to explain what referees are looking at and how rules are supposed to be interpreted. Why can’t the same be done for explaining analytics now?
As The Athletic‘s Stewart Mandel said, the information is available. Why can’t someone in the booth provide Klatt and his analyst colleagues with the numbers that would explain a particular decision to the audience?
It wouldn’t be the first time a sports broadcast shared percentages with viewers. Apple TV+’s Major League Baseball streaming telecasts put graphics on the screen giving the chances of a hitter succeeding in a certain situation. And fans didn’t typically consider that information particularly useful. But that data could be extremely informative during a football broadcast.
The intention here is not to single out Joel Klatt. (And really, it was Gus Johnson who brought up analytics.) He is an excellent color commentator who consistently informs viewers with observations and explanations of why a play did or didn’t work, why a player is or isn’t having success. Viewers of Fox’s Big Noon Saturday telecast often learn something from his analysis.
Besides, Troy Aikman did the same thing last week on ESPN’s Monday Night Football when the Las Vegas Raiders scored what was presumably a game-tying touchdown versus the Kansas City Chiefs. Raiders coach Josh McDaniels opted to attempt a two-point conversion for the win, rather than kick an extra point to tie.
That decision was chalked up to analytics. But was McDaniels’ decision even an example of using analytics? Aikman did much the same thing during this week’s MNF telecast of Broncos-Chargers, talking about Los Angeles head coach Brandon Staley.
At some point, shouldn’t more information be provided than this? Can’t these broadcasters ask coaches questions about analytics-driven decisions during their production meetings? How about having an expert in analytics, maybe someone who’s collected that data for an NFL or college team, join the conversation by explaining what the percentages are?
Unfortunately, the interpretation of analytics isn’t restricted to game broadcasts, as Larry Fitzgerald demonstrated on ESPN’s Monday Night Countdown.
“Analytics cannot come in and say the wind is blowing 30 miles and hour, it’s raining sideways, my left tackle is hurt,” said Fitzgerald. “My wide receiver that has a bad hamstring is not moving as fast as he can. All of this, analytics can’t take into account.”
That sounds like a misunderstanding of analytics by Fitzgerald. And he’s just a year removed from his NFL playing career. Did he hear such factors cited by his coaches in justifying particular decisions? Were analytics dismissed by anyone who insisted that “gut feeling” or tried-and-true strategy should dictate choices instead of numbers?
Also, how many coaches incorporate analytics with the sort of on-field, old-school thinking Fitzgerald is touting? Maybe a placekicker or punter is performing poorly. Perhaps a coach senses that his team wants to go for it on fourth down.
Data and percentages are tools to help the decision-making process, not dictate it. (Of course, some coaches might let analytics dictate strategy more than others.) But in listening to football broadcasters, using numbers is frequently dismissed as contrary to how football should be played and coached. That’s not the case and such an impression shouldn’t be given.
Analysis of analytics doesn’t have to take over a football broadcast, as some fans complained has happened to baseball with talking about exit velocity and launch angle. That wouldn’t happen anyway. Yet broadcasters include that information because front offices, managers, and players incorporate it. It’s part of the game.
The same applies to football now and viewers deserve to know how percentages influence decision-making and whether a coach is using data correctly. The sport’s broadcasters can and should do better of explaining that.
Ian Casselberry is a sports media columnist for BSM. He has previously written and edited for Awful Announcing, The Comeback, Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, MLive, Bleacher Report, and SB Nation. You can find him on Twitter @iancass or reach him by email at iancass@gmail.com.
