The failure of the NFL to have pylon cameras at every game has created competitive imbalance. And the NFL is pointing a finger at the networks for it.
The NFL should actually point the finger back at itself.
Every game should have pylon cameras. The highest-profile games do. The lower-profile games don’t.
Walt Anderson, a former referee and senior V.P. of officiating who now serves as, among other things, the league’s on-air rules analyst, addressed the situation on NFL Network’s Gameday Morning.
“Some games are going to have camera pylons, some games are not gonna have those,” Anderson said. “That’s really up to the networks.”
Is it, though? The NFL, on most issues, micromanages the networks. It’s what happens when supply is limited. The supplier dictates terms to the customer, no matter how much the customer is paying for the product.
If the NFL wants pylon cameras at every game, the NFL needs to simply make two phone calls. One to Fox, and one to CBS. Because those are the games that don’t have pylon cameras. The lesser ones, second tier and below.
Last week’s Falcons-Bucs game, which had the Fox No. 2 crew, didn’t have pylon cameras. As a result, the officials ruled that Falcons tight end Kyle Pitts scored a touchdown when he apparently didn’t. Absent pylon cameras, however, there was no way to overrule the seemingly erroneous ruling on the field.
Anderson said something else that makes it even more important for the league to tell Fox and CBS to reconfigure the budgets to include a line item for goal-line pylon cameras.
“As the teams move up and down the field, there are a lot of cameras move with them,” Anderson said. “So some plays, especially those long breakaway plays, there may not be a camera on the goal line.”
Right. So have pylon cameras for those moments.
The bottom line is that the NFL is more concerned about the bottom line than it is about getting it right. Even though the league has the power to tell CBS and Fox to spring for pylon cameras, there’s a broader corporate dance for which the music is always softly playing. For example, the networks (other than ESPN/ABC) are currently miffed that the NFL forced Monday Night Football on to ABC for most of the rest of the season. It’s not exactly the best time for the NFL to tell Fox and CBS to spend more money in the name of getting calls right.
Still, it needs to happen. It should have happened when the current TV deals were done. Hopefully, it’ll happen during the next round of talks.
Regardless of when it happens, the league has the power to make it happen right now, if the NFL is willing to consume the political capital (or pay the money) necessary to get there. Unless and until the NFL does, it’s fair to say that the NFL doesn’t care nearly as much as it should about getting all calls right.
