[HN Gopher] Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a ...
___________________________________________________________________
Chuck Klosterman on why we've never actually seen a real football
game
https://archive.is/mi308
Author : proposal
Score : 24 points
Date : 2026-01-27 19:57 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.latimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.latimes.com)
| nlawalker wrote:
| _> During the college football playoffs, ESPN's family of
| networks will sometimes show the same game on multiple channels,
| with one channel broadcasting the whole affair from the Skycam
| camera. This is a remote camera hovering above and behind the
| line of scrimmage, replicating the perspective one sees in a
| video game. Coaches call this the "All-22" view, because all 22
| players on the field are simultaneously observable._
|
| I remember there being discussion here about coverage of when the
| NFL first made all-22 available for public viewing:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4549832
| doctoboggan wrote:
| I stumbled across an all-22 broadcast during this recent CFP
| and really liked it, however they didn't have any commentary at
| all. I do like to hear the color commentary from people who
| know how to analyze the game (usually former players).
| Rooster61 wrote:
| I've never heard this called all-22, and I've been around a lot
| of football. I played from middle to high school, and my dad
| has filmed all but 1 high school game for the same school for
| 37 years. I've exclusively heard this referred to as "wide
| angle" by filmographers and coaches alike.
| williamcotton wrote:
| Plenty of analysts call it the all-22, eg:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sp2sVfSAlM
| trillic wrote:
| It's colloquially the all-22.
| legitster wrote:
| We watched some games last year on the all-22 (because it was
| the only way we could watch it on ESPN+).
|
| You definitely lose a lot by not having the close-ups, the slow
| motion replay, etc. That said, you actually get to see many
| more of the little things that are kind of cool - what teams do
| to set up for a play, what coaches are doing between plays, how
| players and officials interact, etc.
| j4cobgarby wrote:
| It wasn't until he mentioned 'soccer' that I realised football
| meant American football.
| macleginn wrote:
| Most of what he writes (including the part on the skycam)
| applies to soccer as well.
| _--__--__ wrote:
| Maybe, but soccer doesn't have very many situations where
| there are ~14 players standing in spitting distance of each
| other and a 6 inch shift in the position of the ball or a
| single player has huge implications for the outcome of the
| game.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| Soccer fans also miss out on an hour of commercials each
| game (it's easy to skip the ones at halftime).
| chris_va wrote:
| Surprisingly, the natively english speaking world is about
| evenly split on "soccer" vs "football".
| llm_nerd wrote:
| It's the LA Times, a clearly American newspaper, so of course
| the reader must assume football = "American" football. This is
| not contentious.
|
| Further, the contention of the article is simply that there are
| many perspectives to a game like (American) football, and every
| perspective is limited in some way, not receiving the full
| information of everything happening simultaneously, and this
| also applies to any video source. Not sure how that relates to
| fascism, but somehow it apparently does. Regardless, the
| contention is just as applicable to soccer (aka the shortened
| name the brits made for Association Football)
| mabster wrote:
| Unless LA stood for Latin America haha.
| mabster wrote:
| I guessed American when it was compared to Hockey, Baseball and
| Basketball.
|
| In Melbourne, Australia, Football is again another sport (but
| it not being called Footy gives it a way).
| vessenes wrote:
| I think of football as one of the killer apps for tv. Baseball is
| one for radio: baseball is almost always better over radio;
| there's lots of space to do something else at the pace of most
| baseball games.
| mysterydip wrote:
| I spent a summer building a car in a garage with baseball on
| the radio. That was the most I've enjoyed the game by far.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| that may be. but that's like saying, "XYZ is a killer app for
| vinyl" haha.
|
| football as a televised spectator sport? trending down. it's
| not dead, but where growth is measured, it is not good. the
| cultural thing this guy is talking about in the article, it's
| going away. fewer and fewer people every year value the
| aesthetic experience he is describing.
|
| TV ownership? trending down. they've never been cheaper for a
| reason. trend for TV production since peak TV? down.
|
| football as a gambling product? up. okay, do you see what i
| mean by bad growth? football mediated as betting stats on apps?
| up. draftkings, polymarket, ESPN fantasy app ARPPU? up. ESPN
| streaming app ARPU? down. comcast? hated, down, everyone is
| cheering for it to go down. do you see?
|
| there is no way to talk about specific instances of football
| (and stadium sports') cultural weaknesses without sounding
| really cringe. maybe just, "who cares?"
| derektank wrote:
| >TV ownership? trending down.
|
| Do you have sales or survey data to support this claim? I'm
| willing to believe individual households might be less likely
| to purchase TVs, but my understanding is that manufacturers
| are producing as many or even more screens than ever, though
| that might be for commercial or business use. Incidentally,
| it's efficiency from this scale that allows manufacturers to
| sell televisions at such low prices, not a lack of demand.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| haha well you wouldn't have thought that at some point in
| the past, tv set ownership was like 100%, so of course it
| has gone down, but it's still trending down. this also
| seems kind of obvious to me. Household
| Ownership Rate 2011 2020 2023
| ------------------------------------- TV Set
| ~99% [3] 96% [3] 88% [1] Smartphone 35% [2] 85%
| [2] 90% [1]
|
| [1] https://www.tvtechnology.com/news/ces2024-smartphone-
| ownersh...
|
| [2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
|
| [3] https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2020/nielsen-
| estimates-121-...
| vessenes wrote:
| Hmmm. NFL revenue continues to grow, with something like half
| of it from media licensing. So, I think you're wrong. My son
| watches NFL on his laptop, but there's little to distinguish
| how he watches it from the experience he would have on a
| Samsung tv - he's not like in some chat group trying to get
| Ochocinco to write his name on a jersey - he's passively
| consuming an edited video feed of a football game with
| commentary.
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| okay, let's look: Entity 2016 Rev
| 2024 Rev Nominal Real (Adj)
| ---------------------------------------------------------
| Netflix $8.8B [5] $39.0B [6] +341% +229%
| NBA $6.5B [3] $11.3B [4] +74% +30%
| NFL $14.0B [1] $23.0B [2] +64% +22%
| Inflation --- --- +34% [7] 0%
|
| i didn't say the NFL made less money, because i'm not
| stupid. i'm trying to describe a secular trend so i'm
| comparing the revenue growth in different media companies.
| looking at this table, a simple way to interpret this is,
| kind of obviously, netflix isn't really about presenting on
| TVs per se, they make a media platform, which performed way
| better than the NFL did, almost 10:1, which is really
| reinforcing my point no? for every 1 dollar someone gives
| NFL, consumers give Netflix 9. see? to me that is a trend
| going down, even if to you, it is a trend going up. depends
| what your benchmark is!
|
| another POV: other people do a better job at making NFL
| content than the NFL does, which is what you are saying
| your son is consuming. and listen, honestly, ask him if he
| or his friends bet on football...
|
| [1] https://www.footballscoop.com/news/report-nfl-
| rakes-14-billi...
|
| [2] https://www.sportspro.com/news/nfl-
| revenue-2024-financial-ye...
|
| [3] https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/20
| 16/10...
|
| [4] https://www.sportsvalue.com.br/en/nba-teams-surpassed-
| us-11-...
|
| [5] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/
| reven...
|
| [6]
| https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nasdaq/nflx/revenue
|
| [7] https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl
| bobro wrote:
| What's the sport for short form video?
| Analemma_ wrote:
| That's actually an interesting question. Table tennis, maybe?
| Each volley is the right length for a TikTok video, and some
| of them (certainly not all) have spectacular long-distance
| lob+smash plays.
|
| Seems like it plays well with vertical video orientation too.
| derektank wrote:
| Lots of Olympic events seem well suited to the format. BMX
| racing, freestyle skiing, luge/skeleton, and a variety of
| track and field events all have runs that last for less than
| a couple of minutes. Not sure if there's anything comparable
| in the realm of professional sports besides highlights
| WorldMaker wrote:
| Basketball trick shots and single plays?
| vessenes wrote:
| I wish it were chess boxing. I love chess boxing.
| shuntress wrote:
| Baseball is killer in-person but it's also pretty nice to just
| have on TV. There is nothing else like the tension of a
| critical at-bat.
|
| Football is actually really _really_ weird for a spectator
| sport and, I think, is generally presented very poorly. 80% of
| the game is deciphering opposing formations to determine what
| they each are predicting the opposing formation is about to try
| to do.
| vessenes wrote:
| Football is just a really complicated sport; one reason I
| think it's popular is that it's fun on a visceral physical
| individual level ("Wow, look at that run/block/hit/kick") for
| 'beginners' watching and is also intellectually engaging as
| you learn more, "wait, how did they shift the secondary just
| now??"
|
| Baseball - I like it in lots of forms, too. But I think a
| good radio announcer can get you most of the fun out of a
| critical at bat narrating.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I recently watched Brockmire with Hank Azaria, and thought
| it was funny how the actual game announcing were just mere
| interruptions to whatever else he was talking about at the
| time. Which is pretty much how I find watching sports at a
| bar when there's multiple screens with multiple games and
| people you're with not actually into any of it.
| dylan604 wrote:
| I went to a ball game to watch a buddy's kid throw a first
| pitch. I didn't know that there was more than one first
| pitch. We sat around talking after their first pitch and it
| was already the 3rd inning before I realized the game had
| actually started. I must have missed the "play ball"
| announcement.
| stevage wrote:
| The author keeps restating their thesis without offering much to
| support it. It's infuriating.
| IvyMike wrote:
| To me, _this_ is the only real football game:
| https://www.sbnation.com/a/17776-football.
|
| (No spoilers please!)
| goda90 wrote:
| Better on mobile browser.
| tenahu wrote:
| Interesting, and I have also finished live football games
| thinking it would have been better to just watch it on TV at
| home.
|
| However, his claim that a spectator would "automatically reframe
| what she saw into the way it would appear on television" is never
| supported other than him saying "trust me, it's true, if you
| don't believe me you are in the minority".
| dylan604 wrote:
| I've been to JerryWorld or ATT Stadium one time for a non-NFL
| game. Most people just watch the giant screen as the actual
| players are tiny from the stadium seats. Watching at home/bar
| was the same conclusion I got to as well. I have no idea how
| much tickets are, but I know parking is extremely expensive as
| well, never mind concessions.
| legitster wrote:
| It's often pointed out that the ball is only live for about 18
| minutes of every game. But what makes football so fascinating is
| that for every play there are 22 different jobs being executed at
| the same time. And the jobs change every play.
|
| For something like baseball, you can basically see everything
| happening in frame the whole time. But for football, the game is
| so information dense that you can spend hours unpacking the game
| afterwards to see what was going on. That's why replays and
| highlights are so much more satisfying. And that's what makes it
| fun to analyze and or watch videos during the week - you can find
| all sort of unique or interesting aspects just watching the same
| play again and analyzing a different personnel group.
|
| It also explains why cameras are everywhere (besides them being
| just flat out cheaper for high school games, etc). Film study is
| a crucial part of the game for players - more than in any other
| sport.
| cgannett wrote:
| reminds me of a friend of mine who turned his alabama football
| passion into a cameraman career
| cheschire wrote:
| Whenever I think it might be worth it to finally go watch an NFL
| game live, and I start looking at those ticket prices, I start to
| question if it's worth it or not. Then I get to the seat view
| simulator and instantly close the tab because holy hell are the
| "affordable" NFL seats absolutely terrible to watch a game from.
| Can you even see the player numbers let alone the names? I guess
| you need to be a big enough fan to know all the players by number
| on offense, defense, special teams, and the full depth chart for
| every position in case there are injuries.
|
| Nah. A one time purchase of a 77" TV with surround sound was
| absolutely the better option.
| 2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote:
| One time purchase? How are you watching?
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Probably an OTA antenna and/or streaming
| cheschire wrote:
| Since I would maintain an NFL+ subscription regardless of my
| attendance at a game or the purchase of a large TV, I don't
| factor it in.
|
| I got the TV specifically with the money I redirected from an
| NFL tickets budget line.
| psadauskas wrote:
| I went to go see a Broncos game once about 10 years ago, it was
| $400 for a single ticket. I was in the top section, 3 rows from
| the back, I needed a Sherpa to help me get to my seat. I could
| tell there was a game of football being played down below me,
| but that was about it. I couldn't see the ball, I couldn't read
| any of the players' numbers, I couldn't see the refs hand
| signals. A beer and a hotdog was $30, and there was a 10-minute
| wait for the trough urinal in the bathroom. I was just watching
| the game on the jumbotron, which based on the distance was
| comparatively smaller than the TV in my living room.
|
| The atmosphere was great, cheering with 75,000 other fans is
| exhilarating, but I haven't felt the need to go again. Soccer,
| hockey, basketball, baseball, I've all been to multiple times,
| the Denver stadiums for them are great, and the tickets and
| concessions aren't too expensive. Football is the only sport I
| really follow, but I'll never go to another game. The local
| high school is within walking distance, and a ticket is $5.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| I used to go to Rockies games over the summer with coworkers
| after work and buy cheap seats in the rockpile and everyone
| would drink and eat and just leave when they felt like it.
| It's probably the best live sports experience I've ever had.
| alamortsubite wrote:
| College is a good alternative. I go to one of my almae matres'
| games every year. To me, it's way more fun than NFL for a
| fraction of the price.
|
| I agree NFL is best at home. Hopefully OTA broadcasts remain a
| thing for a long time to come.
| taylodl wrote:
| Live football far exceeds football on TV for watching play
| development and execution. TV can't resist the closeup, which
| precludes you from seeing tne entire field of play, the defense
| being run, the matchups...you're missing a lot on TV. That
| being said, I don't live in a city having an NFL team so I have
| to travel. Add in elevated ticket prices and I don't typically
| make it to more than one game per year.
| direwolf20 wrote:
| The article repeats itself several times without any new
| substance, and then drivels nonsense -- TV is psychological
| fascism?
| clarkmoody wrote:
| He uses the word "fascism" without any relationship to that
| word's meaning.
| the_cat_kittles wrote:
| i like thinking of tv as an art form, and football as the artist
| that perfected it
| gretch wrote:
| No evidence or supporting material, just continued insistence
| that the author is correct.
|
| "I can't crawl inside your skull and prove you wrong. But this is
| how it works for most people, including most who insist it does
| not."
|
| Consider this direct excerpt of 2 back to back sentences and how
| 1 contradicts the other.
|
| You can't crawl inside my skull, but you can crawl inside
| everyone else's?
| schiffern wrote:
| The essay is a great example of a mindset that devalues the
| subjective and strives to rebrand it as objective.
| Paradoxically it shows insecurity. "My experience doesn't count
| unless it's The Truth."
|
| You like a thing. _That 's fine._ That's _enough_. There 's no
| need to prove the worth of your own enjoyment by fantasizing
| that it conquers everyone else's brain too.
|
| You're the adult now. You're allowed to like it _just because
| you like it_.
| jimbob45 wrote:
| Bit silly considering the scoreboard typically has a TV that
| shows the most important bits that would have been seen at home
| anyway. His argument may have made sense in 1980 before TVs were
| introduced in stadiums.
|
| For an actually interesting topic worthy of your time, check out
| how 1st down markers are calculated and shown on screen at home.
| It's much more complicated than you'd think.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_%26_Ten_(graphics_system)
| sidrag22 wrote:
| I kinda went into this article hoping he was gonna touch on a
| topic i find distasteful about modern televised football.
|
| Years ago, TNT for NBA games had this annoying habit during live
| action where they would follow a player after they scored or
| whatever and cut back to broadcast view, but it was so late, you
| would lose considerable amounts of context into the next
| possession and the players would already be in their
| actions(sometimes the player being followed would be involved in
| this action to make it even more stark that you were missing
| important context).
|
| the NFL, has this pretty much every single play, for a game where
| the setup matters a lot. they'll cut to the fans, the sidelines,
| a player's face... and then with a second before the ball is
| snapped, they'll show the broadcast view, and you'll have to make
| a quick read into what the offense/defense is showing.
|
| Kinda kept hoping he'd lead there with the funny "fascism"
| statements, but it never really led to a criticism of the
| broadcast, and he just kept harping on the same point that
| anything besides broadcast view is trash, and how he assumes
| everyone forces broadcast view in their mind instead.
|
| I'm pretty negative about the modern sports broadcast experience,
| so i guess i was pretty let down seeing an article with a title
| like this... and instead of it being a critique, it was a
| celebration of it.
|
| He even kinda setup the point about important context with his
| skyview cam stuff, and just still comes back to the same point,
| that broadcast is best...
|
| I also don't wanna pretend everyone would want the same
| experience I do, but that brings me to another issue i have with
| the broadcasts in general. The generalist broadcaster is the
| beloved announcer in modern broadcasts, but it just feels lazy..
| why is there not 4 different broadcasts for major games that
| deliver products catered to casual viewers, enthusiasts, kids?
| The casual viewer would probably prefer to see a fan wearing a
| funny hat, but the enthusiast would prefer to see the formation 5
| seconds sooner.
| WorldMaker wrote:
| > why is there not 4 different broadcasts for major games that
| deliver products catered to casual viewers, enthusiasts, kids?
| The casual viewer would probably prefer to see a fan wearing a
| funny hat, but the enthusiast would prefer to see the formation
| 5 seconds sooner.
|
| CBS Paramount directly explored that space a bit. They
| experimented with showing the same games on CBS or CBS Sports
| _and_ on Nickelodeon. The Nickelodeon version would include
| things like "slime cams" and silly sound effects, you know for
| kids. (Or for adults watching a playoff game with less interest
| in who won and more interest in background viewing and
| distractions from other party topics like politics.) It was an
| interesting experiment. Possibly something to replicate, but
| also certainly with as many channels involved in Sports as
| serious business not something that will be easily replicated.
| iamwil wrote:
| I'd be interested in what kind of eSports game is condusive to VR
| spectating.
|
| I tried doing Dota spectating before, and rigged up a mod for
| Minecraft vlogging/spectating, and concluded it wasn't quite like
| being at a stadium, or watching it on Twitch in a way that was
| interesting.
| shuntress wrote:
| I am convinced that there is an absurd amount of unrealized
| potential for spectating in eSports. But everyone seems to just
| deliver an experience that is more-or-less "like playing the
| game yourself, but worse, and with forced-hype commentary"
| rather than an actually engaging spectator product.
| ggfdh wrote:
| I've only ever seen Klosterman do friendly interviews. I think
| his work would improve if it was challenged more.
| andrepd wrote:
| > Soccer is exclusively about atmosphere and identity, so the
| experience of being in the crowd and the experience of the game
| itself are only nominally associated, in the same way going to
| see the Grateful Dead in the late 1980s was only nominally about
| music.
|
| This man has absolutely no idea what he's talking about x)
| shuntress wrote:
| Ah yes, of course, _The Beautiful Game_ is clearly not at all
| about the actual game...
| shuntress wrote:
| This guy is not totally wrong but he is also _way off_ about
| pretty much everything even just simple basic facts. He writes
| "Michigan Stadium, the third-largest sports venue on earth."
| which is not even remotely true. Michican Stadium isn't even in
| the top 5 of venues _in the US_ never mind globally[0]. And thats
| if you just take capacity counts at face value and don 't try to
| include places that have huge standing room capacity like horse
| racing tracks.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sports_venues_by_capac...
| quickthrowman wrote:
| You're technically correct, but
|
| I ran through the list, Michigan Dome is the third largest
| sports venue on earth, for _team sports_ , or better yet, the
| third largest sports venue that everyone in attendance can
| witness all of the events taking place.
|
| Like the author of the piece we are discussing, I don't
| consider auto or horse race tracks to be a singular, contiguous
| sports venue', obviously you can fit a ton of people alongside
| a track that is multiple miles long, the seating areas aren't
| always continuous, etc.
|
| The stadiums in India and North Korea are similar to Michigan
| Dome, all spectators can see the same event occur the entire
| time it is occuring, auto racing doesn't really allow this, not
| sure about horse racing.
| ethanrutherford wrote:
| The article presents its thesis ad nauseum, the idea that
| "everyone is always mentally reframing the game into the TV view,
| even if they think they aren't", but never makes any effort to
| prove the thesis or provide supporting evidence. I'm not
| convinced he even defines what "reframing it in my mind" even
| means. Throughout the entire article, the question in my mind is
| "in what way? What does 'reframing' it look like? What exactly
| are you claiming I'm doing?", and at no point is that question
| answered.
|
| A hypothetical is set up where a woman gets to see one great play
| close up, but the rest of the game happens nowhere near her seat.
| If your thesis was that "football is better on TV because you get
| all these unique angles and instant replays that you can't get
| from the one seat's position", this would be a solid argument.
| But the thesis is that "we all imagine the TVs camera angle in
| our heads", and at the end of this hypothetical, you simply
| assert that this is what she's doing the rest of the game. "It
| must be true because it must be true", this is just a circular
| argument.
|
| There is a bit about how every game in modern day is being
| recorded on cell phones, which is truly irrelevant. That games
| are being recorded by audience members is a. true of all sports
| and b. unrelated to what each person is thinking about in their
| heads in the moment, whether they are or are not the ones doing
| the recording. That recording, after all, is only from the
| perspective of the one seat, their present view of the game is
| unaltered by the presence of cameras in the audience.
|
| There's another point, perhaps meant to follow from the previous
| irrelevant point, about memories of a party vs a video recording
| of a party. The idea is that if you watch the recording for a
| month, that recording will be the only thing you remember, but
| it's extremely unclear in what way this is meant to relate to the
| thesis. What you supposedly imagine in your head in the
| _perceptual present_ has nothing to do with what you _remember_ a
| month later, and it 's not remotely surprising that reinforcing
| the memory of a _recording_ over the course of a month will cause
| it to be more easily recalled than memories from the event
| itself. It 's common knowledge that the human brain does not
| commit every detail and every moment to memory, and it's trivial
| to demonstrate that this is true: simply attempt to remember what
| color shirt you wore last Wednesday. There is interesting
| psychology here, but its simply not related to the premise in any
| way.
|
| Then there's the throwaway comment about it being "fascism",
| where you seem to reduce the definition to just "mild behavioral
| conditioning". This is both based on your premise, which you have
| not provided proof for, and goes nowhere. It doesn't lead to any
| further point or conclusion, it's just an aside, "by the way I
| think that means it's fascism because I think that word means
| mind control". Even if we assume your premise is true, its more
| than a little bit of a stretch to say that counts as "mind
| control". All you've done is dilute the meaning of the word to
| the point of banality.
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