Thank you, ACC and ESPN! Thanks for making an overdue change in college football broadcasts to try and truly serve viewers.
It might not be as big a move as adding instant replay — which happened for the first time during the Army-Navy game in 1963 — but it’s close. It’s certainly more important than video game-inspired camera angles that show up in seemingly every broadcast. And it’s more likely to improve broadcasts than the extra-loud ambient fan and stadium noise that Fox Sports embraces.
In a long overdue move, borrowed from recent experiments with spring pro football leagues, the ACC and ESPN announced this week that ESPN’s Friday night conference games and the ACC Network’s prime-time Saturday games this season would let viewers hear the real-time discussions between the on-field referee, the replay official in the press box and the league’s command center in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The approach was first reported by David Teel of the Virginian-Pilot.
With an ACC-influenced mindset, the reports linked the move to controversial endings of a couple games involving Miami last season. That’s just part of the reason, though.
It was those games. It was also the successful implementation of the same transparent approach to replay reviews by the UFL, USFL and XFL.
And hopefully (and this is certainly a stretch) the move to improve broadcasts might even be the result of a bit of common sense and logic.
OK, those last reasons are unlikely, but it’s a fairly easy thing to implement and it’s great that ACC and ESPN are the first to do so.
Neither of the biggest, most powerful college conferences, the Big Ten and SEC, could be an early adopter in this instance. They don’t need the attention or the potential headaches.
All broadcast partners and conferences have the technology to make this smart, simple change, but it takes some guts to do so. So, thanks to the ACC for doing something others will eventually follow and implement as well. Who knows, with the changing landscape of college athletics, this could be part of the ACC’s eventual legacy.
If it works, access to the replay review process offers the kind of behind-the-scenes access that fans crave. It might not be compelling, but it should be hopefully helpful and interesting.
Still, we’ve had replay reviews for more than two decades and the process still has issues — notably in terms of efficiency and speed, along with the more-than-occasional times when a replay happens, seems unclear, but nothing changes as a result. Getting behind-the-scenes access to something like that might not be better for the sport, so we’ll have to see how things play out.
Two other initial downsides come to mind.
First, it’ll further infuse broadcasts and embolden fans to use football jargon. Instead of “defensive pass interference,” we’ll hear DPI and we’ll be on our way down a slippery slope of being more transparent but somehow being less clear because everyone will use the acronyms and jargon instead of the actual words.
Second, my guess is someone loses a job as part of this. It may not be some big public mistake but putting more people on live microphones just means somebody’s going to say something that bothers someone else. Maybe it’s their tone. Maybe it’s that some fan base thinks someone who’s part of the process is biased against their team. But it’ll happen.
Plus, and perhaps most of all, the process need not be performative. There’s no need to hold up broadcasts for the access. If it’s a quick review, and the broadcast misses it, so be it. Keep things moving.
It’s about the game, not the officials speculating on the stop-action minutia of a replay.
Finally, the review process, at least the camera angles, should be available in the stadiums as well. If you’re going to inform fans at home, you should similarly inform those in person.
All the other potential positives — most importantly getting to a correct call — outweigh any downsides. So, if it can happen, and happen in an efficient and speedy manner, it’ll be a super addition.
It’ll be something that gets adopted and repeated by other conferences and broadcast partners. If broadcasters and conferences they’re smart, the process also offers a prime opportunity for sponsorship. (And even if they’re not smart, they’re all focused on monetizing everything possible so it seems like low-hanging, valuable fruit.)
If all that can happen, then access to the replay review will be a valuable addition that serves viewers. Like a pylon camera but even better.
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