Should broadcasts show replays of gruesome injuries?
In the 58th minute of their away game against Leeds United this past Saturday, Liverpool found themselves with an excellent opportunity to attack. Leeds got too hasty with their incessant press and were caught out when Liverpool central defender Joel Matip flicked the ball over Kalvin Phillips’s head to a wide open Harvey Elliot. Elliot was virtually all alone, with the closest defender over five yards behind. The entire right side of the field was vacant, a clear path down the flank toward the Leeds United goal.
Elliot caught the ball in stride and sprinted forward. The closest Leeds player to Elliot, midfielder Pascal Struijk, was in quick pursuit. Elliot’s first touch of the ball after the pass from Matip took him further toward the inside of the pitch than he may have wanted. This wayward touch allowed Struijk the opportunity to lunge forward and make a desperate tackle, hoping to stop Liverpool’s sudden attack in its tracks. The tackle did just that, catching part of the ball and forcing it away from Elliot’s forward charge. But in the same motion Struijk collapsed upon Elliot’s back left leg.
For a brief moment play resumed, with Liverpool attacker Mo Salah making a quick attempt to win the ball back after Elliot had lost it. Then, as Salah looked over to see Elliot sprawled on the field and began urgently waving to Liverpool’s training staff, everything came to a stop. The instant reaction from Salah to disregard all aspects of the game and call the trainers over, coupled with sudden exclamations from both benches and fans close to the field, immediately marked the situation as a horrific. Raphinha, a Leeds United player, comforted Elliot while the trainers quickly began tending to him. Salah walked away with his shirt over his head. A camera shot of Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp caught a player in the background saying, “Why?”
The full outcome of the injury wasn’t revealed until later in the evening, after the game was long over and Elliot in hospital. Elliot’s ankle had dislocated under Struijk’s tackle. The quick response from Salah and the Liverpool training staff ensured that no serious ligament damage was done. Elliot is now out of hospital and will begin a long road to recovery, a cruel twist of fate for one of the Premier League’s most promising young players.
As the training staff continued tending to Elliot and fellow Liverpool players huddled around their young star to comfort him, the commentators made repeated references to the replay of the tackle that caused the horrific dislocation. At one point you could hear Arlo White, one of the broadcast commentators, verbally recoil after watching a replay himself.
“I think, if they do go to a replay, our host broadcasters and our colleagues at Sky here, everybody, I would advise you to look away,” Lee Dixon, White’s broadcast partner, instructed the television audience.
No broadcast did show a replay of the tackle. Searches on YouTube days after don’t show close-up replays, only poorly zoomed videos from the regular live broadcast. Pictures have emerged from different areas of the field showing Elliot’s ankle twisted unnaturally to the left. Clearly the tackle which caused such a distortion was gruesome, although casual spectators did not see the closer extent of the injury. Producers live in studio at Sky Sports in the U.K. and NBC Sports in the U.S. made the decision not to allow any close replays to be shown on broadcast.
This decision certainly makes sense from an ethical perspective. It is morally impermissible to make a spectacle out of another’s suffering, the motivating factor for Sky and NBC’s decision not to air any replays. But such a decision also raises questions about the efficacy of both sides. Are there any compelling arguments to be made in favor of allowing replays to be shown that depict such painful and traumatic events?
My inclinations tell me no, there are not; refer to the reasoning provided above. But there is an argument that holds some weight, saying that spectators should be provided as full amount of information as possible and then they can make the decision whether to view such replays or not. This is a bit of a libertarian argument in favor of viewer freedom. Cutting off replays is overly restrictive to the audience’s sense of viewer freedom, and so any and all replays should be shown regardless of their content.
Such an argument, of course, ignores the very curatorial nature that goes into even the most banal of replays. Certainly not every replay of every single action in every game can possibly be shown in the same broadcast as the game itself. Social media allows such a system to occur, regardless, as live viewers catch moments and quickly upload them to Twitter or Facebook for others to watch again. But broadcast networks have to balance allowing a game to flow and interrupting such a flow with replays of what producers deem are “important moments.” These producers and their crews make hundreds of these decisions every game, and, although I don’t know for sure, I can assume that a greater number of replays are disregarded than are shown. The very nature of sports broadcasts are restrictive to their audiences, all in favor of the best viewing experience possible. The alternative is no replays whatsoever; I doubt even the staunchest libertarian audience member would advocate for such a situation.
Other gruesome injuries have raised the same questions, with different broadcast teams choosing different responses. One of the most poignant and the most enduring in recent memory, for American sports fans at least, was the compound tibia and fibula fracture Louisville basketball guard Kevin Ware suffered during a 2013 March Madness game. Ware had leaped into the air in an attempt to block an opponent’s shot. When he landed on his right leg, it snapped, directly in front of the Louisville bench. Ware could be seen at the opposite side of the court from the camera, lying on the floor, part of his bone clearly visible outside of his skin, the result of the double compound fracture. All of the reactions from his teammates, the fans, the coaches, and the broadcasters told the story. The images live on in mine, and I’m sure countless others’, heads. CBS, the broadcast network responsible for that game, showed replays of Ware’s injury twice, allowing the video to quickly recirculate on all corners of the internet. Now a cursory YouTube search can show you the full period of the broadcast, multiple replays and all.
That was in 2013. CBS was heavily criticized for their coverage. Comparable injuries have occurred in the intervening years. Everton players Andre Gomes suffered a fracture and partial ligament tear in his ankle against Tottenham. The broadcast didn’t show any replays of that injury. It would seem this is the modern trend, and it is a good one. Still, this wasn’t always that case, with broadcast teams previously favoring extra replays of circumstances they knew would engage more of their audiences just due to the sheer horror of them.
Former Redskins quarterback Joe Theisman’s leg break in 1983 was one of the first, and most widely populated, horror injuries that set the standard for how broadcasts would cover such events. The standard has now changed, however, for the better of the players involved and for the fans and spectators alike.
