I watched a good part of the fourth quarter of the Miami/FSU game last night. ESPN was running a regular broadcast; ESPN2 featured a split screen feed with several different camera angles.
This is the first time I’ve seen this kind of football telecast (saw them do it for basketball last winter). It’s not a bad idea; certainly beats another poker show. It’s somewhat interesting watching the action from the “skycam” or an end zone camera.
What I didn’t like was how they wasted three sections showing the coaches and a player sitting on the sidelines. Some of us don’t have 52″ TVs, so screen space is at a premium. Yeah, we know there are two coaches standing on the sidelines. Perhaps they are wandering back and forth. Maybe one of them is even waving his arms. So what? Do we need to see that the whole game? [Incidentally, the camera people responsible for following the coaches have a really, really boring assignment.]