Screen Pass: How networks present the game →
I love and watch a lot of football.
The season is 17 weeks + the playoffs and unless I’m traveling I watch all day Sunday, Monday night, and the odd Thursday or Saturday night game. As a result, I spend a lot of time with the graphics from each of the 5 networks currently broadcasting NFL games (CBS, FOX, NBC, ESPN, NFL Network).
None of them is perfect, but a couple are better than the rest with the NFL Network far far behind everyone. I give them (NFL Network) a break for 2 reasons:
- they broadcast in HD, so at least unlike their first year it doesn’t feel like you’re watching a local high school game
- they’re still very new to it, they’ll improve.
During a game, I want to know the following at a glance:
- possession
- the score
- the quarter
- remaining time
FOX and CBS win, hands down. While I like FOX’s team-color indicator better than CBS’s bullet (sandwiched between the logo and name), they both do the basics right and do them well.
Compare to ESPN, NBC, and NFL Network:
ESPN and NBC only give a clear indication at the start of a play as to possession: a down indicator on the field (seen above) in the offense’s colours. NFL Network has yellow bar for its indicator, but it doesn’t do the thing properly; it looks like part of the network chrome.
FOX, CBS, and NFL Network put their info across the top of the screen — helpful if you’re watching at a bar and the TV’s not up high. FOX goes an extra step, offering scores-around-the-league next to the current game’s details. (CBS offers around-the-league, too, but they slap it across the bottom of the screen, thus making you look somewhere else and covering part of the game.)
CBS, NBC, and ESPN are all experimenting this season with how to display remaining time-outs for each team. Both NBC and ESPN have the yellow dashes below their info bar, which is fine, but the dashes get a little bit lost, I think, amongst all that chrome. CBS’s version, 3 yellow buttons atop the info bar, is easier to absorb, again, at a glance.
Between you and me: I’m surprised NBC and ESPN aren’t better at this — specifically for football — than they are. That said, given the sheer number of different sports each network broadcasts, perhaps it’s more important for them to be pretty good across the board, rather than great in only one sport.
I used to prefer FOX, but CBS is my current fave, for sure — although they do have Phil Simms…but this is about the graphics, not the commentators (which is good otherwise I’d have to bring up Cris Collinsworth and let’s be honest, no one wants that).
