How do we improve the TV coverage? With a complete upheaval of how commercial television operates and their business structure.
Ch7 don’t broadcast footy as a public service, they do it to get people watching their ads. Specifically, ads for their other shows because AFL coverage doesn’t make them nearly as much money as their other shows do.
They want as big an audience as possible. The footy nerds are already locked in, so they concentrate on getting and keeping casual viewers. And casual viewers aren’t in it to analyse or learn what’s going on. They want to know where the ball is and who has it. And who the players are (and half time segments to tell them why they should care about them). And that other people enjoy watching it as well (hence crowd/people at home shots). And see the cool things that happen like marks and goals and tackles, which you don’t see very well from constant wide angles.
Fox Footy is a bit different, they can afford to be more analytical in their coverage because they’ve already got a captive audience who have given them money. So they can do things a bit differently like wider angles and pretty graphics and stuff to tell the story instead of focusing on the players. But again, they need to keep as much of the audience they have as engaged as possible, so they can’t go too nerdy to the point where it’s boring.
-edit- ok fine if everyone else is going to talk about commentators then so am I. Channel 7 commentators carry on the way they do because the producers consider them to be a big part of the product, not on the periphery of it. This is why we end up with ex-players all over the place - it’s insta-credibility to the casual viewer. Same reason you get Boy George and Delta Goodrem on The Voice instead of professional vocal coaches or whatever it is they’re supposed to be actually doing. People who don’t care nearly as much about footy as we do will see the “4 time All-Australian and premiership player” caption and automatically think they are an expert on what they are watching.
I can understand the use of several of the close ups shots - the general congestion/ contested ball POV has a level of human interest that outweighs the interest of the minority who’d happily see the game as tactical chess (ie coaches and tactical blitz nuts).
However, I think there’s a bucketload of improvement that could be done in terms of their non-play close ups.
I’d divide these into;
Stoppage preparation- why the relatively tight shot before the umpires prepare to bounce the ball, throw ins, players untangling themselves from the bottom of the pack?
A total waste of video - could easily be replaced with either a wider shot, or a down the ground view.
Close shots of big names before the ball gets to them in the forward line - usually involving two blokes wrestling, followed usually by a spillage with the POV too tight to actually see where other players are coming from.
This is a perfect opportunity to swap to a down the ground shot - it’s usually inside 50, and even a medium close shot would still allow the Mano a Mano to be seen, with some idea of what the other players are doing ( or being ignored)
Use of replays.
Surely here’s the biggest opportunity to insert a wide down the ground shot.
Yes there are some who go “ who kicked that?” But they’re in a minority- why pander to them.
Include the last 15 seconds of unfolding play.
I find it hard not to ball watch at the footy. As much as its good to see how sides defend space, set up down the ground, individuals work hard off the ball.
I am usually still looking at the ball when live.
I probably want to enjoy more angles and off the ball footage of passages of play on replay. You get a bit of that with Foxtel whereas Seven cuts to an ad break.
If loads of footage is being taken, it would be good to have more footy shows mid week dedicated to dissecting games in terms of tactics.
This would be a great chance for special comments players to get their Tony Romo on, bust out the telestrator pen and tell us what they’re seeing at the stoppage setup, or even beyond it.
The trick is having people who can do this quickly and concisely. Richo would be excellent (because of the way he can explain things simply, not necessarily for the insights themselves), Pearce would be good, Bartel and Hodge would be ok, Jobe needs a LOT more practice, and everyone else is beyond useless.
We could have had this sort of experience online but Murdochracy loaded us up with the NBN so it wont happen in the next 20 years
Kayo, is basically the foxtel of online sports, you pay to see ads and your sport, at terrible quality that drops out all the time.
Compared to other countries we’re forced to get our sport through the most primitive tools, and LNP voters just keep giving us these ■■■■ ■■■■■ who are doing that to all aspects of Australian life.
There is generally multiple channels broadcasting the game. So, it wont cost any viewers. One camera, no need to do any editing other than cut to adverts. Wouldn’t be a huge cost I’d think.
You would think there would be some out of work assistant coaches who could do a good gig on 7 talking through a game. A late night footy show would be perfect. There is so little genuine analysis of the game.
Whilst I would love this, there simply isn’t a market for it.
I’m not sure who is going to pay an extra 12 to 24 people to commentate one game per week that’ll be skewed towards the one team.
You could do it with some interstate teams (I think they already do that through radio, not tv) but I’m not sure how it’s viable for the Melbourne teams.
Agree, it’s not really viable for channel 7 to do. More an enthusiast thing. Imagine a stream of an enthusiastic blitzer doing the call with special comments by (say) Callum Twomey and Nackers or similarly knowledgeable people.
Ditch the 7/Fuxtel coms, and synch up your fave Radio commentary.
Improves it 100%.
As for TV cam angles etc, I reckon they’ve tried everything under the Sun so far haven’t they?
We now have HD and reverse angles on 7 as Fuxtel had a decade ago, and they gave the sky cam thing a whirl and both seem to have ditched it as the stupid novelty it was.
The only innovation that would really help is being able to “Choose your View” style tech where you have the choice of hitting a button to pick what camera you’re viewing from, which was supposedly in the pipeline, but post Corona might be a long way off still now.
There was a few seconds of ‘behind the goals shot’ as Essendon took up its positions prior to the start of the first quarter. This was the only time during the game, where you could understand the set up which is a massive difference to being at a game.
Fark off the flog commentators and stupid segments they have during match day. Get commentators who are actually interested in the sport, and not about pumping up their own flat tyres.
What I’d love to see is no ad breaks after a goal (Just have ads scrolling along the bottom of the screen) and then when a goal is kicked, replay the whole chain of play that led to the goal, rather than just the end bit of it.
