Television is not ruining the game of soccer. That said, it is important to understand the effect that watching a soccer match on a television has on a spectator’s cognition, as a match on a screen is fundamentally different from a match taking place in front of the spectator’s eyes. At worst, the effect can create an unbearable narrative that is pressed upon the viewers against their will (Favre, Beckham). At best, TV can allow the audience a much more nuanced look at the game, complete with close-ups of players that leave no emotion neglected.
Soccer, and sport as a whole, has often been compared to theater. Theatrical productions “…do not consist of images, the perceptions they offer to the eye and the ear are inscribed in a true space (not a photographed one), the same one as that occupied by the public during the performance; everything the audience hear and see is actively produced in their presence, by human beings or props which are themselves present.” Once the human beings and props are filtered through a lens, the experience of the spectator has completely changed. For example: climate. Whereas many people would be happy to watch Rosenborg in a December Champions League match from the warmth of their home, their experience of watching the match is undeniably different from those who go to the stadium.
There are two key cinematography elements in play when looking at the manipulation of soccer on television: The shot itself, and the edits between shots. The framing of the shot is the most obvious difference to the view of a spectator in attendance. The viewer at home is limited to what the camera allows her to see. The standard shot allows the viewer to see roughly 20 yards on either side of the ball left to right, and will zoom in and out depending on if the ball is on the near or far sideline. If a person unfamiliar with the sport were to sit down and watch a soccer match 
on television, he could be unaware of the existence of the goalkeeper (and the goal itself, for that matter) until the ball happened to reach that end of the field. While cropping out portions of the field can be detrimental to anything that happens off the ball (the Zidane headbutt, for instance), the payoff is that the audience is allowed a closer look at the area surrounding the ball.
The medium shot is a zoomed-in frame that allows the viewer to see, in general, two or more actors (players, coaches, referees, et al) in the frame, generally from the waist up. Like the standard shot, the medium shot feels “comfortable” to the audience because “it replicates our human experience of proximity without intimacy.” In a sporting context, that is to say that the audience is able to see Michael Ballack chase after Tom Henning Øvrebø from a safe distance, while still allowing them the closeness to see what exactly is going on.
Compare this to a live match, in which Ballack and Øvrebø may eventually gain the attendee’s attention, but are competing with so much pandemonium—in the stands and on the field—that they would be far easier to miss. DVR capabilities further enhance the viewer’s experience by allowing Ballack’s maniacal ravings to be rewound and watched again.
Close-up shots, often used during stoppages of play and during penalty kick shootouts, are the most formative of shots and work the hardest to create meaning for the television viewer. This is an effect which is impossible to replicate at a live soccer match (at least barring a pitch invasion). When focusing on a character’s face, the close-up allows the viewer two similar, but categorically different experiences. The close-up provides an exclusive look at the character’s facial expressions and therefore at his emotions, but it also forces the viewer to relate to this character, either in a positive or negative way. The camera, then, is forcing the viewer to make a decision regarding their feelings toward that player.
Apart from framing, the angle that the camera uses on a particular shot can be of great import, especially in relation to coaches. Low-angle shots, consisting of placing the camera below the object, are used to project fear, power, and respect onto the object they are displaying. Often we will see low-angle medium shots of living legends like Ferguson and Wenger, but perhaps only an eye-level close-up of Alan Pardew in his first match, showing the different between the respected and those yet to earn the respect. The television viewer, however, may conclude from Pardew’s furrowed brow that Newcastle never really should have gotten rid of Hughton after all. Such minutiae, which add context, real or false, to the events happening on the pitch, are often lost at a live match.
The final aspect of the shot itself that requires attention is the speed of the shot. In soccer, this mechanism comes into play only during slow-motion replays of important events that have been selected as relevant to the viewer’s understanding of the match. These replays are intrinsically tied to memory. Watching in slow motion as Zidane calculates Roberto Carlos’ moon-shot of a cross and then slices the ball into the top corner (and from the reverse angle, and then slowed down more, and then…) dramatically increases the odds that this goal will be remembered.
An individual shot means very little standing on its own, as the editing of the shots is what ultimately creates the plot for the match. Due to their brevity, crosscuts are the main type of edit used. This permits the viewer to catch a quick glimpse of a stretching substitute, cowering fan, or attractive woman in the audience before quickly returning to the action on the field. These “snapshots”, to borrow a phrase from Christopher Sullivan, represent an effort to replicate for the viewer the feeling of being at the match, and can be compared to the wandering eyes of a fan in the crowd during a stoppage in play. The fade is the other form of edit between shots, but this is almost exclusively used during replays. The fade is usually a soft, slower change which will allows the mind to view the replay as something akin to a dream sequence, the events of which can be immortalized in the viewer’s psyche, and consequently uploaded to YouTube for the rest of the world to share (see Zidane, above).
There are moments that make television viewers feel like they are watching a soccer match from the stands. Perhaps a ball rolls out of play, but the camera lingers on a nearby player for a period of time, allowing the viewer a candid moment with the player. That said, the television production is at its best when it allows the audience to see things that would have been missed out on at an attended match. Cristiano’s wink, for all the typhoon of fury it aroused, might as well not even have happened without television’s ability to pick out these moments and make them serve as context for the game or often even as synecdoches of the game itself. Television both distorts and enhances the viewing experience, and, when considering modern soccer, it would be missing the point to insist on one of those over the other.
Christian Metz, The Imaginary Signifier
One shot = one uninterrupted run of the camera.
Richard Barsam, Looking At Movies
Read More: Pixel Dramas
by Andy Streets · February 17, 2011
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Interesting and some good points about perspective. I’m a bit surprised that audio commentary was not mentioned though because it seems that in terms of creating a narrative, for better or worse, viewers cannot help but be influenced by commentators- agreeing with them and/or finding flaws. We rarely watch games without commentators (mostly because we want the atmospheric noise) who explicitly graft a narrative onto the game and I think it’d be interesting to consider this prominent part of the TV experience in relation to the take here on the visual.
I agree with Jim about the commentary bing hugely (HUGELY!) important for constructing how a game is understood.
I’m not sure about how you could build a general semiology of TV football given that many of the shots and angles are used for every game and they don’t seem to construct the same patterns of spectatorship every time (and is therefore rather unlike cinema – where you seem to draw your inspiration).
I certainly agree with the differences from live to TV football and would be interested to hear firstly what other factor you think mark this difference (highlights reels, commentary, pundits, ad-breaks, etc) and secondly what you think the impact of the more general (not neccessarily TV) narratives that are structured around the game (for example how was Ronaldo’s wink dependant on an allready constructed Ronaldo narrative just as much as on the TV form in order to interpret?)
I’m just pondering here ….
Football camerawork is like football refereeing in that you only notice it when it is really bad.
The cut away shots can become infuriating, especially when the game is actually going on, and that view of the penalty from behind the taker seems to make the whole thing less real (for me at least).
Nice article that brought me back strongly to my college course on cinema. I agree with Jim that commentary is a crucial aspect of what TV brings to the experience of watching football – for better or worse. Occasionally I’ll find a stream of a match without commentary, and it changes the experience utterly – it feels bizarre for a while, but also liberating in that I am given leeway to pass my own judgments without being influenced by an “expert” (sometimes debatable) commentator.
One thing I’ve noticed about the handling of televised matches is how editing is used to pass judgment on refs. Often there will be a call (say, offsides), then a replay that shows that call to be good, bad or debatable, and then the camera will sometimes linger on the referee or linesman for a little while as if reminding you that a human was behind that decision, and you can think of him (or her) as you will. I don’t know why but I always notice those moments in a televised match and laugh. But I do notice them, and think about the ref. So point to TV editors?
There’s no doubt about the importance of audio commentary, but to my mind, the ways the announcers influence a match are both more obvious and vastly (vastly) more talked about. Everyone’s aware of how they’re reacting to the commentators—just look at Twitter during a match—but I, at least, don’t always stop and think about how the camera is affecting my impressions. The best and worst thing about the camera is its tendency to become transparent, so I appreciated Sean’s giving it some opacity.
Great piece. It’s also steeled my commitment to watching for tracking shots or close-ups of a forlorn Fernando Torres during upcoming Chelsea games.
Excellent piece from someone who has clearly thought about these issues from a visual and cinematic perspective.
While I accept the general validity of the point on commentary, I also think that it is worth noting that many of “us” watch matches without commentary, or at least without commentary that we can understand. For those of us in North American, that is most like because we are watching a stream of dubious provenance or because our football Spanish isn’t up to snuff, but it is also quite common across the globe when watches in bars/pubs/clubs, particularly if multiple matches are being shown. It’s also true that many of the millions of Africans who watch European football regularly will almost never have commentary in their native language.
@ursus arctos What I’d dearly love to do is see if there is any subtle difference in the way certain countries show certain games. I realize there’s a standard language for live sports broadcasting, but it’d be fun to cue up two recordings of the same game (assuming, of course, there were multiple video feeds to pick from, which is admittedly rare) and see how differently they present the action.
Heck, even looking at old videos of ESPN broadcasts of USA 1994, it’s clear they’ve come a long way since then.
Perhaps this explains a lot about American football’s popularity in the U.S. and the, relative, un-popularity of World football in the states.
I cant get over how bad the MLS camera work is compared to around the world.
Ill see some eastern european games where you can see 5-6 replays of a goal while here were are regaled with reaction shots and maybe two replays.
The camera angles are even worse.
A player runs down the left side (across the field) towards the net and takes a low shot that comes close to the post….or does it?
Most of the time, there is no good camera angle and you end up getting a 3/4 shot from which you cant tell if the ball is 6inches or 6metres from the post.
This is mainly due to the fact that there are no behind the net cameras in most MLS stadiums (i admit I havent checked all buts its MLS) so if there is a FK 25m from the net smack in the middle of the field, you wont see the behind either next shot but are treated to a side angle view of the shot.
Simply horrible.
I watched a Europa game last year with an armenian friend (it was armenia team vs serbian team) and we then watched Toronto play in the MLS and it was so visible and sad to notice the lack of camera angles.
I turn off commentary or watch foreign language feeds. We are bombarded with english announcers here in north america because people are under the impression that accents make you smarter. Also, watching a CL game covered by english passive-agressiveness is worse than french coverage, worse than italian and almost as jingoist as spanish media. knowing a few languages makes this easy. So does Rojasdirecta.
TV is how most people watch football. Watching it live is waaaay behind.
Good article. How about one on the merits of watching a game behind the goal as opposed to on the sidelines. I personally cant watch a game if Im ground level. You are closer and see more details but not much in terms of flow of the game. Some people I know swear by sideline view while others are behind the netters who like to see the game unfold from there.
reading this, i have 3 thoughts:
1- Nou Camp always looks like the biggest playing surface in the world – though probably, in reality, not bigger than the Brittania Stadium, the same way Highbury always rendered the idea that the game was played in a 5-a-side pitch – does this make my impression of the quality of the game different? I think it does, and as mentioned in the previous post, helps make FC Barcelona’s more “televisual”.
2- “In slow motion, every tackle deserves a red card”. by distorting the timeline, it gives the idea that the player that produces the tackle had all the time and intention to do what he did, thus making the Tv spectator believe that all is done on purpose. I always find it enfuriating when commentators judge the severity of foul based on slow motion replay;
3 – “Cristiano Ronaldo’s wink”: as it ever been estabilished what that was all about? Does anyone know, for sure? As he ever admited to it? All i know is that he winked. Could’ve been something about the Rooney sending off, could’ve been because someone made a joke about Ricardo Carvalho’s groin, could’ve been because he saw some girl on the stand… We (at least I) don’t know. The production crew created a narrative. Reality has been spun that way ever since, but the Truth (with capital “T”) is that we don’t know.
My 4th idea is that this text is brilliant and much needed!
It would be interesting to read your take(s) on the framing content of football matches. Specifically, did anyone else find ESPN’s World Cup coverage a bit condescending? The openings, music and colors all presented South Africa as a homogeneous, safe-for-white audiences vacation paradise, as though viewers couldn’t be expected to know that anything has happened in the country since Paul Simon’s Graceland.
I think one vital aspect of television that many viewers have become too used to is the replaying of key moments. When I went to watch my first football match live I very quickly noticed this gaping hole in my viewing experience. Whereas on TV every significant or exciting moment is often replayed multiple times, when watched live each goal, no matter how epic, flashes past you in an instant.
As such, I found that I missed out on many of the finer points, but gained a better feel of the whole match. Smaller details, such as dribbles and flicks, even audacious backheels, are often missed out by the crowd, but glorified on TV. On the other hand you seem to get a better gist of a players overall performance when watched live, since you can actually track him throughout the whole match and spot any errors he make even when he’s yards off the ball.
Just my 2cents.
Run of Play: Justifying taking those career killing college courses since 1985.
excellent piece!
even though its a lot harder to ‘see’ what the camera is doing, there are some unique characteristics of coverage as well. for example, spanish league matches always have these slow-mo montages of players and fans wincing, winking, celebrating etc, and french productions always have this wes anderson approach to showing corners.
i think there are some sports that allow for even greater exploitation of the camera. american sports, particularly football have these quotes from the players and repeated flashbacks. cricket, with its repeated stop-starts and the need to always return to showing the pitch has exponentially greater possibilities. an average delivery (about 30 seconds) will have something like 15-20 different shots.