Captain Fear
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- Mar 20, 2019
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Some of the best moments from “The Match II” came not from the golf shots but from the verbal jabs taken by the participants and commentators. And it demonstrated the potential value of making more audio available to people watching sports at home.
For now, we’ll take any televised sports we can get. But to the extent that televised sporting events during the pandemic coincidentally take the audience to places we have rarely i ever been, networks and sports leagues should embrace the opportunities.
Apart from the extent to which live audio from the participants could enhance professional golf tournaments (and, in turn, dramatically raise the profile of golfers who are particularly entertaining and engaging), live audio could help other sports, too. Including football.
Currently, the live audio that comes from a hot microphone during games is so sanitized and edited that it became a big deal when ESPN televised Jets quarterback Sam Darnold saying that he was “seeing ghosts” when facing New England’s defense. How much more compelling would football on TV be if we heard unfiltered audio (appropriate edited for the inevitable profanity) from players and coaches?
The league and its teams would have to be willing to do it, and there’s little chance of that happening anytime soon. But it’s the kind of thing that could boost dramatically the overall production of the broadcast and, in turn, the value of the rights to produce and broadcast the games.
Maybe if other sports begin to do it, it will become something that fans expect to see and hear, forcing others to follow suit in order to maximize their ratings and revenues.