NFL ramps up coverage with new technology

It’s fitting that one of the stories after the NFL season opener involved a communications breakdown.

After losing 28-21 to the New England Patriots, Steelers coach Mike Tomlin complained about the teams’ headsets not working during the game, saying its “always” an issue at Gillette Stadium.

Tomlin’s complaints come after Tuesday’s ESPN Outside the Lines investigation that linked Spygate and Deflategate, which alleged all kinds of Patriot chicanery, including headset communication issues.

So basically Deflategate has been followed up by Headsetgate and while many — especially the NFL — likely hoped the controversy that swallowed up the off-season might finally be over, this continues the prevailing narrative that sets up the Patriots as the league’s team of super-villains this season.

The NFL is as close to too big to fail as anything right now, although a bungled off-season shows that the league’s leadership seemed like they want to give it their best shot at testing that assumption.

But the weekly football feast is still all that really matters for fans. And despite all the deserved criticism, the NFL does continue to push media coverage and technology forward, particularly as they push for global domination because North America is already pretty saturated.

This season, the NFL will play three games in London, England, and those games will start 9:30 a.m. Eastern time, setting up a full day four-game football marathon. As well, one of those games — Buffalo Bills vs. Jacksonville Jaguars on Oct. 25 — will be the first NFL game to be globally streamed free on Yahoo. It’s an experiment, but likely the beginning of more to come.

The NFL is also offering a paid online streaming service called NFL Game Pass, which in the U.S. allows fans to stream games online after they finish for a relatively cheap $99 (U.S.). But in international markets, including Canada, consumers can stream games live, get NFL RedZone, and watch archived games for $245 dollars a season. (Although blackouts still apply if the game is airing on TV, so sport-loving cordcutters should be careful to check what is not available.)

In Canada, Sportsnet will air Thursday Night Football, but Bell Media is really going big on the NFL, with TSN and CTV carrying two games on Sundays at 1 p.m. and 4 p.m. TSN also airs the prime time games on Sunday and Monday, as well as ESPN programming including Sunday NFL Countdown.

In terms of broadcast innovations, ESPN and CBS will be using its new Pylon Cam for , which has cameras embedded at the goal-line, which could potentially provide interesting new angles for touchdowns. It looked interesting during the preseason and could be a very cool addition, particularly when a player dives for a touchdown.

The NFL is also outfitting all of its players with motion tracking sensors, and the New Yorker had a good piece about how that might change the game, with analyst Chris Collinsworth predicting the tech could lead to players practising in virtual reality in a decade.

As for the present, while the ingame analysts and Sportsradar, a betting and analytics firm, will have access to real time data, NFL coaches won’t. Fans can get a taste of it after games if they have the NFL app on Xbox One, which has a feature called Next Gen Replay. In addition to a highlight video, it shows player movement with their symbols for their position and looks like an animated coach’s play.

Unless you really are an armchair coach, it doesn’t add much, but it is interesting because its one of the first consumer-facing uses of this kind of data that most sports leagues are now collecting. Two cool things it shows is how fast the player was running and how far he travelled on the play. While the rest of the app most mostly features sliced up NFL Network footage and highlight packages, after checking it out after Thursday night’s game, I could see this becoming one of my go-to spots to pick and choose what highlights I want to watch.

I’m less excited about the fact that the farcical Super Bowl Media Day — an event that literally should add circus to its title with people in costumes and no end to goofy questions — will now be turned into a prime time televised event.

Then again, I’m the guy who thinks the NFL Combine is about as exciting as watching paint dry.

But it’s just more proof that the appetite for all things NFL continues unabated and this league will always work to find ways to exploit that.