They occupy this magical space of anticipation, where the entire week begins to come to a boil for the NFL fan. They are tailor-made to showcase their journalistic prowess, spending power, and technological advancement. They are windows into the gridiron-centric world the fan will come to occupy for the better part of the Sunday.
And during any given segment or talking point, the NFL pregame show model — the host, panel, insider, and reporters-on-scene model we know so well — is failing the fans that watch it.
The one-way street approach to pregame programming is as outdated as five and 15-yard pass interference calls. It’s high time these shows embraced the fact that fans don’t want to sit and watch as much as they’re willing — and ever-increasingly able — to interact with them using social platforms.
That idea, not four retired NFL players behind a desk, is a major factor in keeping “The Shield” at the top of the American sports food chain. But it was shocking to see how few invitations viewers at home received to join the discussion while watching nine hours of content spread over four networks: FOX, CBS, ESPN, and NFL Network.
Let’s be clear: I’m only addressing the nine hours of content I reviewed last Sunday, not the Twitter, Facebook, and other feeds that should be intertwined with those airings, but aren’t. And in the efforts of full transparency, I’ve been employed for two of the four networks addressed here (I won’t say which ones). I’ve gained a bit of understanding into the hard work that goes into every broadcast, not just the ones that are shown before every Sunday kickoff. Some of these networks do incredible and groundbreaking things, social media, and second-screen stuff.
The NFL pregame show model leaves something to be desired, though. It’s time to break down the walls between jersey-sporting fan and traditional talking head, embrace the conversation on any social stream and build a pregame show around engagement.
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The NFL pregame experience is not interactive as much as it is just plain old reactive. Never is this more apparent that at the shows’ peak — the release of the league-wide inactive player report 90 minutes before kickoff.
This is the NFL pregame’s bread-and-butter; it informs regular fans and fantasy footballers alike. But it’s telling that each show adopts an ‘insider-to-fan-only’ model, where two insiders talk about which players will suit up, while ignoring the collective moans and groans of the adjacent social media conversation. Granted, this can be a tricky place to operate, but it’s a space NFL pregame shows should thrive in.
The pregame shows of the future won’t show Chris Mortensen and Adam Schefter shooting the breeze at a table. They’ll show fan-submitted reactions on Vine, when Jamaal Charles is inactive and someone else from the waiver wire scooped Knile Davis up. They’ll be the venting place for a guy in a Tony Romo jersey at AT&T Stadium, when Brandon Weeden is forced into a starting role.
NFL Network does a great job with #MondayNightmares, their forum for desolate fantasy owners at the end of the week’s games. The NFL pregame slate can own some of that space, embrace the fantasy footballer’s plight, and show some interactivity in the process.
An increased social presence can help take the most common shot of NFL pregame shows — the one showing the quarterback getting off the team bus — and turn in into must-watch TV. FOX does an amazing, albeit brief, job of this during FOX NFL Sunday. They’re the only network that captures players while they’re still on the bus, turning the camera around and letting guys, like Jeremy Hill and Thomas Davis, record their own smack talk last Sunday.
Fans want more. A video of Calvin Johnson taking the field for warm-ups at Lambeau Field doesn’t need to be from the networks — it’ll be from the Lions fans swarming around the team tunnel with smartphones in the future. And pregame shows can add a few more user-generated angles to Odell Beckham Jr.’s one-handed pregame ballet, just by searching the feeds of fans a little closer. And, of course, the never-ending stream of Instagram photos and videos from the players, themselves, up to game time should be prominently displayed, not placed on the back burner:
Instead, it seems like the only ones with any power are the ones mic’d up on set or on location. With that power comes a common graphic, with a throwaway Twitter plug — Boomer throws to ESPN’s Josina Anderson, for instance, and a graphic with her name, Twitter handle, and location appears in the bottom third of the set. The usefulness of that Twitter handle ends when Anderson’s live shot from Pittsburgh does, and there’s no reason why that should happen. In the 25 minutes after the first shot from Heinz Field, Anderson or any other reporter with a Twitter feed can aggregate content for her next on-camera appearance. That’s what the pregame show of the future should be:
NFL Network invited fans to chime in on certain debate segments using hashtags; and, unfortunately, they were pretty much alone in that endeavor. The pregame show of the future shows fans voicing their opinions in real-time. For instance, NFL Today on CBS debated the merits of Tom Brady against Aaron Rodgers before last Sunday’s marquee matchup. That’s a great discussion — it’s an even better one by airing fan’s opinions live. Live voting was a characteristic common only to NFL Network’s three-hour NFL GameDay Morning, too. While Warren Sapp and Michael Irvin debated if Robert Griffin III was a draft bust, a bar showing real-time fan voting appeared. It’s an easy addition to make, but one very few pregame shows actually do.
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Lastly, the NFL pregame show setup can become a hub of shareable content if it’s allowed to be. Last Sunday, Randy Moss ranked the top rookie wide receivers this season in front of a touchscreen. The moment just begged for something a little more creative than the norm; Moss, an amazing receiver in his first pro season out of Marshall, carries a little weight here. Have Moss try and recreate Odell Beckham’s catch. Mash-up Moss’ 1998 highlights with some funny reaction memes and make a shareable Vine. Or, better yet, juxtapose highlights of a rookie Randy Moss and a player like Sammy Watkins on similar patterns and see which player looked faster. It’s tricky, it involves work and time and effort, but the fan only stands to gain.
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As it stands now, the NFL fan watching at home doesn’t really have a role in what they get to watch before kickoff each Sunday. NFL pregame shows are big-ticket items for the networks that air them; and that means a lot of premeditated thought goes into the segment-by-segment structure of the program. But content streamed from brand new studios and discussed by highly paid analysts should embrace new forms of media, not just established and proven ones. Until they accept the fans’ voice and make the viewer a figurative panelist themselves, NFL pregame shows will continue to stick out as one-way streets of NFL information.