I am going to try my best to describe what can only be depicted as technology gone awry.  It was bad enough when Headline News decided to only use a fourth of the screen for the actual broadcast.  The remaining screen was filled with distracting graphics and ticker crawls.  Other business-oriented channels also bombard you with a screen full of gobbledygook like Bloomberg.  But leave it to ESPN to truly go over the top to cater to football obsessives.

So, what is it exactly that they overdid?  I was flipping channels last night and the Miami-Florida State game was on ESPN-HD.  On ESPN2-HD, they had what can only be described as Coverage Of The Same Game, But On Steroids.  The screen was split up in not one, not two, not three, not four, but TEN separate camera angles!!! Even Siamese twins who suffer from schizophrenia and ADHD would not be able to keep track of everything displayed on the screen.

Hopefully I can describe the screen properly without use of a graphic or photo.  Keep in mind I have a 57-inch widescreen HDTV and even that wasn’t really big enough to really see everything at once.  On the 2 edges there were skinny rectangle-shaped cams.  One had a view of one home team’s fans in the stands and the other had the other team’s fans crowd shot.  Now imagine 8 other “screens” between these two pipe-shaped fan cams.  In the middle was the largest camera which was the normal game cam.   On each side of this angle were 4 smaller shots – 2 on each side.  The top left and right cameras were focused on each team’s coach.  The camera angles below these were focused on each team’s quarterback.

Below these 5 screens were 3 more camera angles.  The bottom left and right screens had random cameras fixated on certain players on the field or other coaches on the sidelines.  The bottom middle camera angle came from the skycam.  Don’t forget the bottom of ESPN2’s screen always has the sports ticker crawl too.

Yes, I know we live in the information age and we want our stats and highlights in real time, but this was truly a case of information overload.  It IS too much of a good thing.  I can’t imagine attempting to watch something like this on a 27-inch or 35-inch screen.  Unless you’re a coach for one of these teams and need to have the most info available to you in order to succeed, there is no need for the casual or even rabid fan to be exposed to that many camera angles. 

I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself in the minority on this position though.  I’m one of those who embrace technology and love to get instant sports updates, but I guess I finally drew the line.  In fact, I drew it earlier when they decided to run the sports update crawl on the bottom of the SportsCenter broadcast.  Now if I’m not online and I want to know who won a game, I don’t have to wait the entire hourlong SportsCenter now.  I wonder how many viewers ESPN loses once someone finds a score but doesn’t care about the video highlight.  Of course, any reduction of “booyahs” I have to endure from Stuart Scott is a bonus for me.