rather then spend time showing Taylor Swift jumping up and down repeatedly along with Patrick Mahomes wife in their luxury suite. How about showing some detailed replay of the touchdown along with some indepth analysis of how it happened.
I counted 16 times.
I hear what you're saying here. We can blame all that on technology. "Back in the day" the TV Cameras were vacuum tube huge things mounted on golf carts or up in the TV boxes. All They did was follow the action with one camera designated for cut away shots of fans and cheerleaders. I know you remember the shots, the standard cut away shots were the "cheerleaders, pretty girl in the stands, the child all dressed in team colors or the shirtless fat guy drinking cold beer". But as the league grew in revenue and cameras became smaller, lighter, portable and digital more and more cameras on the field was the norm.
And then there's the issue of the playback. Everyone of these cameras has a playback guy in the studio/truck whose sole job is to rewind or back up the action for replay. This takes time, maybe 3 seconds for something immediate, or 7-10 for specific action like a foot placement or ball coming out fumble. The dilemma is what to do in those 3-7 seconds (which is a life time for live TV) of rewind time. So this is where the cut away shots are.
So in essence a single play can go like this.
1. Live action covers an interception with run back and a penalty on the play. This is what we see live.
2. Cut away action shows fan reaction, coach reaction, player reaction, family reaction and Taylor Swift. This is what we see live while video of the previous play is being cued up. What hear is the TV analyst (Tony Romo) give his spiel on the pass, the referee analyst (Gene Steratore) give his spiel on the penalty. all while we are looking at Coach Reid, Coach Shanahan, and all the cut aways.
3. Specific video of the infraction is found. It is replayed enhanced with zooms, telestrator marks and highlights. Everyone talks about this while we go back and forth between the video and cut aways.
4. Referee call is announced live on camera. We see and hear this.
5. Cut aways of coaches and players as we hear the analysts guess what the next play will be based on the penalty.
6. Live action as they break the huddle and line up.
Now remember all of this happens in less time then it takes for you to get another slice of pizza or go to the bathroom.
Go back and watch a MNF game from 1970 on Youtube. Compared to today it moves along at glacier speed, the views are limited and so is everything else.
In addition to all the technological advances, I think the league sees the viewers as ADHD kids where the game is a pinball machine with lots of action, bells and whistles to keep them entertained. This all started to change after SB-V when the Colts beat the Cowboys 16-13. It was low scoring a tough defensive game. Low scoring doesn't sell jackets and jerseys. So the next year the league passed rules in defense coverage that opened up the passing game to make it more exciting.
Anyway that's how I see it.
I could be wrong.
Wow, you counted 16 cutaways of Taylor Swift. You could become an NFL Statistician!