As the new and improved United States Football League (USFL) began its inaugural season on Saturday night, every attempt was made to give fans as much access to the teams and players as possible. One technology that had many viewers talking about it was the use of drones during gameplay.
Fox Sports, which owns the USFL, plans to make a $150 million investment in the spring football league over three years. A chunk of that money is going into trying out broadcast innovations that may draw fans in. The idea is to figure out “what’s great” and possibly encourage NFL to follow suit.
So, in addition to drones, you have two players from each team wearing helmets with cameras on them. The coaches and players are all donning mics, the audio feed from which is being made available for telecasts; even the interactions inside the locker room are not off-limits.
Only time will tell whether or not this version of the league has some staying power, but the unique perspective provided by drones inside the stadium soon became a talking point on social media.
The aerial shots were captured by drones that were specially built for the USFL by the aerial cinematography experts at Beverly Hills Aerials. Overall, the fresh angles that the drones captured seemed to impress viewers.
But there were clearly some issues with execution, and football fans were quick to notice – with one of the most polarizing aspects for many being the noise that the drones produced.
In the meantime, we suspect the USFL would be paying close attention to the chatter on social media. Fox Sports has also admitted that “technology will grow throughout the season because there are things that have never been tried before.” The opinion of the fans clearly matters the most in this scenario. So, jump on to the comments section, and let us know what you think about drones covering football: yay or nay?
Read more: 5G drone brings exclusive MLB Field of Dreams game footage
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