What's the next big innovation in sports broadcasting?

Ben Koo: I think baseball is in dire need of a shakeup in terms of how it broadcasts games. I’m a baseball fan but can’t help but my find myself tuning out, looking for other things to watch, or futzing around on my phone. There is just too little action through out the average game to hold the casual fan or attract new fans. There absolutely has to be an intervention in terms of the production status quo of various droll dialogue between announcers, occasional shots of interesting fans, and the abundance of silence as we watch the batter step in and out of the box and the pitcher on and off the mound.

I’d rather watch some guy rob a home run in the 30 seconds between pitches with highlights from another game as opposed to silence while watching a catcher go throw his signs twice. Tell me what pitch was just thrown. Sure I see the small text that flashes for like 2 seconds telling me the last pitch was 88 mph, but for new fans does that mean anything to them? If the majority of fans aren’t into mental game of pitch selection and pitch sequence, than there is just very little low hanging fruit in terms of enjoyment of watching a game. Bombard me with data between pitches. I want to see an infographic per pitch. A player has only 1 home run with two strikes, or is 72% likely to throw a slider in a 1-2 count, update the odds of getting on base every couple of pitches during the at bat. I need something to get me to next pitch, or else I’m going to shoot dinosaurs on my phone or worse yet, return my mom’s voicemail.

Chad Finn (Boston Globe): The innovation I want — make that need — came to me during the World Series. Can some technological genius please give us the ability to mute a single broadcaster during a telecast? Sure, silencing Harold Reynolds with a single click of the remote would have had an odd effect on the broadcast — at times, Joe Buck would have sounded like he was talking to himself. But after enduring Reynolds’s affable prattle this October, it’s a trade-off that sounds so appealing.

Jonathan Biles: The sports technological advance I would enjoy seeing would be goal line technology in college football. The Hawk-Eye system is fully functional in tennis and now in international soccer, why can’t it work for college football? Instead of positioning a cameraman on the goal line or putting a camera in the pylon (both of which should be mandatory), just bug the ball and the goal line so the referees, coaches, players and audience don’t have to hope for a clean camera angle of the ball clearly breaking the plane of the end zone. Apparently the NFL considered it in 2013, but I haven’t heard about it much. Maybe if the leagues or conferences won’t do it, networks could do it for their audience like they do with the yellow first down line and the horrible field goal range line.

Ken Fang: With the popularity of the SpiderCam on football games, I wonder when the networks will take the next step and use drones to fly over stadiums. Because of the fear of a fly ball hitting it, the SpiderCam isn’t used in baseball, but without wires, a drone could. Imagine flying a drone over the outfield to see a defensive alignment or over a close play at first or home. Even during basketball or hockey games, drones could bring viewers new angles and get them even closer to the action.

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What’s the next big innovation in sports broadcasting?

About Matt Yoder