What a season it has been for fans of NFL football so far. Approaching the mid-point of the campaign all teams have dropped at least one game.
Reigning Superbowl Champions the Seattle Seahawks have lost games they should have won, and the Detroit Lions have won games they should have lost.
Denver Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning is rewriting the history books. After a slow start, Tom Brady is leading the New England Patriots into playoff contention. And the Dallas Cowboys have the best record in the league. That’s right, Dallas.
All that should be great news for Australian NFL fans, who this season have a new free-to-air broadcaster. Prior to the start of the season, Seven Network puffed out their chests, turned on their perma-smiles and announced their new deal to broadcast the game Down Under.
Heck, Lions running back Reggie Bush was even in the Sydney studios of Sunrise to confirm the news. Host David Koch looked a little nonplussed to find a football player he had never heard of in his studio, but to his credit, he was rather less cringe-worthy than fellow AFL club president Eddie McGuire, who once asked NHL legend Wayne Gretzky about putting the “ball” in the back of the net.
So, with the second half of the season approaching, is there any chance that Seven Network do much worse?
I make this comment based on a couple of assumptions. I would guess that someone from Seven Network actually wanted the rights to show the games and therefore negotiated with the National Football League to get them. I think it is unlikely – almost impossible, in fact – that the Australian free-to-air rights showed up unexpectedly on the doorstep of Martin Place, like a baby in a basket left outside a convent.
I also assume that someone, somewhere, sits in front of a panel during the games, with some kind of interface with an opposite number in an American broadcast facility, deciding when to insert local bits and pieces – ads, program promos – into the telecast that goes out each Monday on 7mate.
But based on what I have seen I am not prepared to describe Seven Network‘s expectations or expertise as certainties. Things have been sloppy – far more so than they were when OneHD showed the NFL.
Take, for instance, the recent clash between the Tennessee Titans and the Cleveland Browns. A close game, marked by a significant comeback, resulted in a 29-28 win for the Browns. At least, that is the score I looked up rather than saw, since someone, somewhere, threw to an ad break with 40 seconds of the game remaining.
And when the ad break was over, 7mate was showing another, different game.
Then there is the question of Sunday Night Football. The NBC‘s Game of the Week is shown every Monday on 7mate. The game’s iconic theme song – “Waiting all Day for Sunday Night” – is a big part of the telecast and a huge amount of effort and expense goes into its production.
Two seasons ago, when singer Faith Hill was replaced by Carrie Underwood, social media exploded. That’s the kind of influence it holds. The debate over whose version of the theme was better ran hot and strong and in some quarters it’s still going – much as there are some diehard Patriots fans who insist that the team was wrong to replace Drew Bledsoe with Brady 13 years ago.
I have missed one Monday broadcast this season but I have not seen Carrie on stage once. Instead we get the lead-in program, Dream Car Garage – all repeats, all at least two years old – before invariably cutting to a sideline reporter who started her comments 10 seconds previously and well after the introduction.
Neither of those complaints may seem like big things. But you rarely see such a work-experience standard of attention paid to broadcasts of other sports and you certainly don’t see them on any of the other sports that Seven Network broadcast.
The folk at Seven Sport are clearly good at their jobs. This year’s Spring Racing Carnival broadcasts will, no doubt, again show that they are capable of matching the very best in the world at their craft. But based on the first half of the season they have not been applying their highest standards to their NFL telecasts.
Seven Network‘s efforts in their first seven NFL weekends look a little like the defence of the San Francisco 49ers. Both can do better. As a long-time fan, here’s hoping that they do.
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