Sport: The Time of the Television Football Freak

WHEN football first appeared on the home screen, TV coverage involved little mort than a camera somewhere high above the 50-yd. line and a commentator who simply repeated the picture in words. Today the commentators are usually articulate experts, and batteries of cameras peer at the players everywhere but in the shower rooms. Hoisted on cranes, mounted on helicopters and shuttled along the sidelines, they can in effect keep the viewer everywhere at once. Using zoom lenses to peek into the huddle, or directional microphones to pick up the violent crunch of behemoth meeting behemoth, modern TV crews make the action...