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Comment by jerf | Hacker News Reader

The argument in this article is just ridiculous. Handwringing about giving fans more information because they might not interpret it correctly? Breaking news: A lot of people are already plenty wrong with the current amount of information. They'll be wrong with less, they'll be wrong with more, they'll be wrong if the info level stays the same. This is therefore a null argument.

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I think they are just using this as a way to advertise the NFL video product (which seems like it is not selling very well). When you tell a bunch of armchair football experts "This is for experts only. You may not be able to handle it.", many people immediately look to prove them wrong.

This article reminds me of the time I went car shopping and wanted to test drive a 6 cylinder version of a car after driving the 4 cylinder. The salesman gave me this really phony pitch saying "I have to warn you, many people can't handle a car this fast. But once you experience the power of the 6 cylinder engine, there's no going back!". In reality, I didn't see a huge difference between the two models (I didn't buy either one), but I can see how this technique makes it easier for him to sell the more expensive car.

I don't think this is the case necessarily. People have been asking for all-22 footage for a long time and this is the answer they've always given before this season. The fact that they continue to parrot this line makes me believe that's how most nfl executives feel about it

The argument in this article is just ridiculous

It's on the NFL site. It's advertorial, marketing disguised as journalism. It's not making an argument, it's just stirring one up to get attention.

> It's advertorial, marketing disguised as journalism.

It's barely even disguised. If it were published by a news organization[1], or really just "someone else", then you would be right.

This is an article on NFL.com about an NFL product. It's straight up advertising. Publishing an "article" to say "this seems 'risky'; why would we even offer this product to you, our fevered fans" is about the thinnest disguise an ad could have.

[1] http://paulgraham.com/submarine.html

I'd probably be less offended if I didn't see this argument so often. As Evbn points out, it's not the first time I've heard it. I find the premise deeply insulting.

Yeah, the article was pretty weak, I agree. The author was clearly reaching for something to write about the subject.

But the NFL opening up this footage is bad-ass!

Clearly there are varying gradations of being wrong and just because they're wrong doesn't mean they're as completely wrong, or as frequently wrong; the article only claims that they will be more wrong. See the http://lesswrong.com/lw/mm/the_fallacy_of_gray/.

The same argument was used to defend closed access journals: the public can't be trusted to understand raw scientific research.

Anytime you open up anything like this, you force the "experts" to prove they're actually experts... and that's often difficult.

It's not always easy to judge. If a local weather man says 30% chance of rain in DC, does that account mean rain on in some part of DC, 30% of DC will get rain, the average chance of rain for the area is 30% with some parts of it having above 30% and others lower, or some combination of all 3.

This is a good point. What's ironic is that American Football playbooks, formations, and strategies are almost ludicrously complex. And the number of people that think athletes are "stupid" is amusingly large. A large number of the latter are ignorant of the former, including a large chunk of "intellectuals" contributing to closed access journals. people are intelligent in various ways, 3D spatial intelligence for example does not translate into wirting per-se. Nor does it follow that because you are book-smart you will have a clue about analyzing game film.

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