Richard Deitsch writing at MMQB weighs in with a long piece on the future of football on TV. The possibilities are endless.

Deitsch writes:

Viewers should also expect graphics and animation to continue to evolve at the pace technology allows it. NBC’s Sunday Night Football producer Fred Gaudelli suggested that a football field will be equipped with enough cameras so viewers can see a 360-degree angle of any play from any place on the field. He also speculated about visuals that we can only dream of right now. Gaudelli says he has spoken with scientists and the conversations turn to, “Could we ever get to the point where we could start digitally removing people from the field to see a clear view of what we want to see?”

“Football is a game where you could have 150 cameras, but if the bodies are aligned a certain way, none of those cameras will have an unobstructed view,” Gaudelli says. “So let’s say we want to see if Ben Roethlisberger broke the plane of the goal line but the view is obstructed by a player. Could we digitally remove that player and then, based on GPS data, recreate Roethlisberger’s body on the plane of the goal line so we can definitely say if the ball did or did not break the plane? That is where I think you will get to, manipulating pictures. There are some countries with high-end defense systems that can do that, and that is where I think it will go.”

The video game element:

Aagaard expects networks to have multi-screen capability that can measure anything from how far every player has run on a play to the specific distances between players, to deep, immersive fantasy stats.

“If you look at sports video games, you can zoom in on any one player’s perspective; that will be available in the future,” Aagaard says. “In 10 or 20 years the viewer will have  the ability to view the play anyway he wants. Maybe it’s some sort of joystick and he decides if he wants to watch something from the quarterback’s or defensive back’s point of view. The technology will be there. It will just be about the distribution and cost.”

Gambling in football? I’m shocked.

Regarding the auxiliary shows surrounding games, ESPN coordinating producer Seth Markman sees gambling and fantasy football elements becoming much more overt on NFL programming 10 years from now. “I think in 2024 [gambling references] will be commonplace,” says Markman, who runs ESPN’s NFL studio programming. “I don’t think it will be something people tip-toe around. Are we really serving viewers right now by saying the Patriots are going to beat the Jaguars in the game when everyone wants to know if they’ll win by two touchdowns?