Remember the Line on the Field is Unofficial

Football fans hold officials to a higher standard than they do their families, so TV broadcasters sometimes try to take the heat off the men in stripes.

In 1998, broadcasts started putting a line only the TV viewer could see for where the first-down marker was. But announcers were always quick to point out that those lines were unofficial, just in case a spot came up short of the mark.

Betting on NFL lines is stressful enough, fans didn’t need to feel like they were being cheated. Football has always been at the forefront of technology for its television presentation. While many innovations would cause initial confusion, the changes made would be hard to imagine living without today. It’s hard for fans of a certain age to imagine watching a game where the time and score weren’t always on the screen.

Play it Again, Sam

In 1963, CBS decided to utilize a standard videotape machine to show fans what had happened in a previous play. The system was inefficient and difficult to use for the production team. The machine weighed 1,300 pounds and had several glitches as they tried to use it.

The crew was able to replay one touchdown run by Army’s Rollie Stichweh during No. 2 Navy’s 21-15 victory over Army on Dec. 7, 1963. During the replay, the broadcast team felt the need to remind anyone just tuning in that he hadn’t, in fact, scored again.

Let’s Get it Right, Eventually

The NFL flirted with instant replay several times. In the 1970s, it was deemed too inexpensive and inefficient to make work. The league finally found a way to implement it in 1985, but this system would ultimately be deemed not accurate enough and the league would abandon it altogether by 1992. After a few more years of complaining, the league came up with another system that required challenges by an official in the booth and coaches on the field.

When this system resumed in 1998, broadcasts would show officials heading over to look at the screen underneath a curtain on the sidelines. The initial rules also included a time limit, which the broadcast would keep track of by having a clock alongside images of the referee under the trap. The time limit was later eliminated as they improved the system.

What’s the Score?

A television executive in the early 1990s was frustrated not knowing the score of soccer matches while watching them. He dictated to his team that he wanted to see a change. What became known as a score bug was first debuted during the 1994 World Cup.

Having the bug on the screen allowed people at home to have an idea of how much time was left. Previously, fans had to wait for things to flash on the screen. The score bug has been tinkered with overtime to add colors to show which team is which, how many timeouts are remaining, including the power play time in hockey and event to reflect how many fouls there are during basketball.

With the interest in fantasy football increasing, football broadcasts often include up-to-the-minute stats to allow people to track all of their wagers.

Kicker’s Paradise

Announcers often use hyperbole on a long kick, speculating how far a kick may have actually been good from. NBC made people wonder that it is no longer starting the 2018 season. The broadcast team shows kick speed, the apex of kick, and the max distance the kick would have traveled.

Bubba, Can You Hold This Camera?

The 2001 iteration of the XFL wasn’t short on ideas on how to improve the football experience. How many of them were worthwhile is still up for debate. One that stuck idea that stuck around was what the league would call the “Bubba” cam. It was dubbed that because the original guy who held the contraption was called Bubba.

It involved a cameraman being out on the field behind the players holding a camera on a metal stick. This would allow viewers to get an idea of what things looked like in the huddle and would also allow them to get a more overhead view of things.