Sunday, October 11, 2009

The Power Of Analysts

I've always been intrigued the tremendous impact that television analysts have on viewer opinions despite the fact that what they say is almost 100% trite or false. It's easy for me to talk about specific examples of extreme stupidity by studio analysts (a couple of examples here and here), because I can see them myself. It's harder for me to know just how much of an effect these analysts have on average fans.

And all of this is why I've been fascinated by the new feature that CBS has on their pregame NFL show where they ask a question and give several (generally two, three or four) choices. They ask people to text in with their answer, and then ask two of the studio hosts to debate the choices. The texted-in answers change in real-time as the analysts speak. You can then watch how the opinions of viewers shift as the analysts speak.

If anything, it actually underestimates the impact of these analysts for two reason: 1) truly casual fans probably won't bother to text in their answer to some pregame question. 2) people can't take back votes that they entered before the analysts speak, meaning that some of the change of opinion will be washed out.

Despite that, you still see dramatic impacts on the results based on who is speaking. When Bill Cowher or Dan Marino speaks, you always see a clear increase in the voting for whichever opinion they're advocating. What was even more interesting was that every time Shannon Sharpe spoke (at least today, while I was thinking about writing this post), opinion actually broke against his opinion. In other words, even casual fans have figured out that sports television executives always try to throw one clown into their studio teams, and that their opinions should generally be ignored since they're just there for entertainment. For ESPN's College Gameday basketball crew, for example, the clown is Digger Phelps. I would bet that his effect is the same as Sharpe's - the public actually moves its opinion counter to whatever he says. Casual fans overrated the Big East last year not because of what Digger Phelps said, but because of Sportscenter studio analysts offhandedly saying things like "But since the Big East is the toughest conference in the nation..." Casual fans assumed that if such statements were said without debate that they must have been true!

It would be interesting to see such a feature during ESPN's Gameday this winter. My guess is that the response of fans would be similar to what I suggested here. For me, personally, Bob Knight is one of only three or four analysts on all channels and for all sports that occasionally shifts my opinion on something, because sometimes he is able to bring up something that I haven't thought about. But Bob Knight is a brilliant coach who also lived enough of a life before entering the broadcast booth that he hasn't been poisoned by ESPN-itis. Still, it would be interesting to see how many casual fans agree with me.

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