The revolution will not be televised

Please note: this post was originally written last week but technical problems prevented it going live before now.


As I stood at the bar of my local last week, idly sipping a pint whilst watching a rejuvenated Fernando Torres tug violently at Chelsea’s cloak of invincibility, I was struck by one inescapable thought: 3D football is a bit rubbish isn‘t it?

In fact, 3D football is not just rubbish, it’s utterly pointless. During the Liverpool vs. Chelsea game, I watched countless punters hand over their money for their 3D glasses, only to almost instantly turn to their friends and bemoan the lack of any major difference to the picture from the standard coverage being shown on the pub‘s other screens. The general consensus was that the only element of the footage that was aided by the 3D technology was the on-screen graphics; hardly the viewing revolution we were promised when Sky first launched 3D football last season.

Having tried it a couple of times now, I struggle to see any benefit to watching a game in 3D. The significantly fewer camera angles take the viewer back to the limited football coverage of the 1980s, whilst the free form graphics will impress no-one who has ever been to any theme park in the world, or ever bought a 3D special edition box of Frosties (come on, that‘s most of us surely?). Its impact on the fans’ viewing experience is minimal at best, and I am yet to meet anyone who believes this is a technological advancement that either the game, or coverage of the game, actually needs.

More to the point, watching football in the pub in November whilst wearing a pair of dark shades is ridiculous. You look like an idiot. Or worse, Bono. During my recent visit to my local, a group of fans wearing said shades were even given a rendition of “Only the lonely” by an elderly gentlemen who was trying to point out their resemblance to Roy Orbison. However, it’s worth noting that this same elderly gentlemen kept asking everyone where “Fernando Alfonso” had finished in the grand prix, so I’m not sure he can be considered the sharpest of the knives in the draw.

In any case, I think the 3D football revolution is a while off yet. In its second season now, the majority of games are still screened in 2D only, and pubs showing the games that are broadcast in 3D, are rarely a-wash with fans doing their finest impressions of Irish rock stars with delusions of grandeur. For the armchair supporter, the revolution is farther away still, with 3D television sets still prohibitively expensive and therefore inaccessible to the majority of fans.

I’m not sure what can be done to improve the quality of the 3D package. To be honest, I think it’s one of those inventions that people soon come to realise isn’t needed; like the mini-disc player or Sky’s “player-cam” feature (why watch a normal game of football, when you can watch just one player at a time, doing not very much at all?).  Whilst I acknowledge that some of life’s most important and now essential technological advancements were borne out of radical innovation rather than in direct response to public need, it just seems that football fans were not clamouring for 3D football, and now that it’s here, they seem even less enamoured by it. 

But technology, albeit in more general terms, is an issue in football that won’t go away and is a source of disagreement between the game‘s two most senior administrators. FIFA supreme Sepp Blatter seems to be warming to the idea after many years of opposition, whilst UEFA president Michel Platini is dead set against it - recently commenting that introducing video technology and the like will be akin to playing football on the Playstation. But so long as incidents like Frank Lampard’s “goal” in England’s World Cup tie against Germany this year - and even Lee Cattermole’s blatant goaline handball last weekend - continue to occur; the argument will rumble on.

One group of people aside from angry managers who will be pleased if video technology is introduced though, is the television corporations who broadcast football. Just imagine the power they could broker if football associations across the world relied on TV footage to decide controversial incidents? What value their TV packages then? How could any organisation argue the fans’ case for conventional kick off times against the TV broadcasters whose footage the games’ outcome potentially depends on?

If there are few people who are convinced by 3D football, I’d wager there would be even fewer who support the idea of television having even more influence on the game.