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In the Saints-Seahawks game Sunday night, NBC's wire suspended camera drooped twice, nearly striking Matt Hasselbeck. Clearly, this would be a good time for a rant about the negative impact of technology on sports.

I'm not going to do that though. While some innovations have failed horribly, like the puck tracker, the fire puck, Questec, the 360-degree Matrix-style replay cam, and glow-in-the-dark baseballs, most have had a positive impact on sports.
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hbhblah SkyCam covering an interesting game, yet it missed McNabb vomiting?

The past two decades have given us the glorious first down line, the strike zone tracker, the electronic eye for tennis, the instant replay hood (which is good if only for comedy value), on-field electronic communication between coaches and players, the Whizzinator, the Reggie Push goal line cattle prod, and all kinds of surgical innovations. Most of these things do not alter the game however. They are either for the people viewing at home, or to ensure accurate enforcement of the rules of the sport.

The wire camera can have an effect on the game. As Jeff Triplette announced once the camera was put back in place, any live ball striking the camera results in a replay of the down, which is a nice way of saying "do-over". He started to make another comment about how awesome it was to really nail Orlando Brown right in the eye with a flag, but his mike mysteriously cut out. "Totally a once-in-a-lifetime shot though", he was heard telling some Asian Seattle chicks after the game.

But it would be more than a little disingenious for me to pretend to be angry about the suspended wire camera. For one thing, it's the best way to see holes open up on running plays. For another thing, I'd have to complain about the two-minute warning, and that's not going to happen.

bqhbql This commercial worked. I registered a law firm's domain name because of it.

kjadlkakjkj(For the record, J-Red is the official connosseur of big tittes for ECB. )

How does the two-minute warning play into this discussion? What is its purpose? It's an artificial clock stoppage at an exciting point of the game. It provides a key advertising opportunity when people are most likely to be glued to the television. Think about the Super Bowl. The biggest and best commercials are late in the first quarter and into the second quarter. The third quarter mostly re-runs first half commercials. Then, towards the very end of the game, top-dollar commercials return. Madison Avenue knows that a) people who don't care about football are late to Super Bowl parties, b) Super Bowls have a tendency to be lopsided and c) if a Super Bowl isn't lopsided, people will return from the kitchen (or whereever the booze is) if the game is close late.

So technology already artificially alters the game, and we're okay with that. We like our big comebacks and close games and heightened drama, so long as the games always finish regulation in under 3:15.