The NFL season is over, but media coverage of America’s most popular sport is now a 24/7/365 affair.
There’s certainly more NFL media content available than ever before, on sports TV shows, talk radio, podcasts and social media. But is coverage better than in the past?
The Domonique Foxworth Show tackled that topic Wednesday, asking the question: “Has NFL coverage gotten better or worse?” Bryan Curtis, media critic for The Ringer, appeared as a special guest, and gave a clever one-word answer to the question.
“Both,” Curtis said, pointing out the proliferation of coverage has brought both good and bad.
Foxworth broke down NFL media coverage into three categories. The first is those who watch just to see something “dope” or “really cool.”
Then you have “The ball watchers and the jargon users and the film guys,” Foxworth said.
Foxworth is not a fan of the final group, “where it’s like, this is homework, the stats nerds where they just kind of suck all the fun out of it … where they’re looking to solve the problem.”
“When I first got into media…I tried to overcompensate…’Oh no, you guys aren’t smarter than me, I can get as deep into these analytics as anybody can,’” Foxworth said. “Then I realized I started dreading getting ready for this, because it was much more fun to watch the game and then be like, ‘You know what, this is dope. …Because the reason why we like sports is because it’s f****** cool.’”
Curtis pointed out the best in NFL media move seamlessly between the three categories Foxworth mentioned.
“When we talk about the best people at doing TV, the Troy Aikmans, the Cris Collinsworths, the Greg Olsens, they are doing the ‘Wow!’ part,” Curtis said. “They’re smart enough, they’re wise enough to be like, ‘Oh my gosh, did you see that?’ But then they’ve read the analytics, they’ve looked at all those stats, they can mix in Xs and Os and all that kind of stuff and dignify all those things at the same time and not make anybody feel like they’ve been left out.”
“I think that’s one area that we can say has unequivocally gotten better is the in-game play-by-play guys. I think that has definitely gotten better,” Foxworth said.
Foxworth, no fan of “stats nerds,” also thinks social media has had a negative impact on NFL media coverage.
“You find yourself responding to, and also having your takes and opinions, influenced by your social media experience,” Foxworth said.
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