Potential Positive Spins for ESPN’s Terrible Camera Angle

Tuesday night’s Michigan basketball game vs. Ohio State featured a terribly-received camera angle from the floor. Here’s our attempt to defend the debacle.

The camera angle used in last night’s Michigan basketball game against Ohio State might be one of the most universally hated things I’ve ever witnessed in sports. I did not see a single kind word about the floor-cam during the entire game. More people talked about how bad the camera work was than the actual game. That’s probably because nobody knew what was even happening in the game.

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So after seeing the overwhelming negativity, I decided to take up the seemingly impossible task of finding the positives in one of the basketball season’s biggest failures.

The first positive is that it helps basketball fans appreciate what they have. There’s so many opportunities to watch basketball during the season with almost-unlimited access thanks to different sports networks and online streaming. In that, surely things like “camera angles that make the game actually watchable” are taken for granted. This broadcast showed us that the cameramen and women, as well as the production staff, are under-appreciated by the fans. They hold all the power in how we watch. If we don’t respect them, they can give us more games like this. I, for one, welcome our new production crew overlords.

The second positive is that it gives us an appreciation for another group that doesn’t get the respect it deserves: the officials. The floor-cam allowed us to follow the game’s referees in a way we’ve never seen before. Fans call out the refs all the time, but they don’t understand the struggles they go through. Take this example:

This tweet was presented in a snarky manner, but look at that ref. He has to be able to pay attention to what’s going on in the game, call it fairly, and keep his pants up. Have you ever tried adjusting your pants while officiating in a big rivalry basketball game? I know I haven’t, and I can’t imagine the concentration it takes.

The third point is that it adds some intrigue to the game. Sure, basketball should be exciting enough on its own, but that doesn’t always happen. If we watched this game with a standard camera, we’d probably get a boring game where Ohio State completely outplays a flat Michigan squad. With the view from the floor, there’s an added mystery. Did that Mark Donnal shot that was blocked from view by the ref go in or not? How egregious was the foul that was called? Can we trust the scoreboard and the box score sheet to give us accurate information that we can’t see on the screen ourselves? What are they hiding from us? These are the kinds of mysteries that would baffle the greatest detectives from Hercule Poirot and Sherlock Holmes to Shaggy and Scooby-Doo.

The final positive that can be taken away is that it unified the fandoms of Ohio State and Michigan. There are few groups of people that hate each other more than these fanbases. Ohio State fans and Michigan fans can and will argue about anything, but they found solidarity in their mutual hatred of the camera angle. That gives hope that people can set aside their differences united in a common goal, even if that goal is “make sure this camera angle never, ever happens again.” Maybe ESPN did this experiment to prove a point. Maybe ESPN wants Republicans, Democrats and independents to all set aside their differences to create positive change in America, following the example set by these groups of fans.

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That’s probably not true and the network just wanted to try a new crazy camera angle for the heck of it, but it’s a nice thought at least. It’s better than whatever reason the change was actually made.