ESPN recently debuted its Total Quarterback Rating, a metric designed to replace the NFL's passer rating and lend more clarity to the evaluation of the league's signal callers. But this isn't just a statistical innovation; it's a creative way to boost ESPN's influence over the nation's most lucrative game.
Last week, ESPN unveiled its latest attempt at strengthening its hold on the sports-viewing public.
You’d be forgiven for missing it. It took place on Friday night, during an hour long special that featured none of the pomp and circumstance that’s become the staple of an official ESPN Special[1]. There were no clever ads and only fleeting in-show plugs. Nevertheless, when analysts Ron Jaworski and Trent Dilfer introduced ESPN’s Total Quarterback Rating, it represented one of the network’s boldest and most creative bids to ingrain itself in America’s most popular game.
The Total Quarterback Rating, or QBR as it will appear at the bottom of your screen come the fall, is a new metric that aims to redefine the evaluation of an NFL quarterback’s performance. It tracks almost everything a quarterback does during a game, assigning certain point values to each action depending on how much it contributed to the team’s chances of winning.
For example, a quarterback that throws for seven yards on third-and-6 to get the first down will be rewarded with more points than one that throws for those same seven yards on a third-and-12. Likewise, a quarterback that throws for two touchdowns in the fourth quarter of a game en route to a come-from-behind victory gets more points for those throws than a quarterback that throws two touchdowns in the fourth quarter with his team already down by 40.[2] The players are graded on a 0 to 100 scale, with 50 representing an average performance. Top values over the course of an entire season, ESPN said, tend to come in around 75.
The QBR is designed to replace the NFL’s passer rating, an arcane, nearly 40-year-old formula that was flawed to begin with and has only grown outdated since. In a sport where the sheer number of variables present during each play makes it difficult to evaluate individual players, the QBR should usher in some much-desired clarity.
On its face value, then, ESPN has done hardcore fans a favor, and at the same time made the game more accessible to casual viewers. But don’t mistake this for a charitable gesture. ESPN developed the QBR because of its profit potential.
ESPN has a long history of staying ahead of the curve. It was the first to believe people would watch a 24/7 sports network. It was the first to recognize the marketability of televising every round of the NCAA basketball tournament. It brought alternative sports to the mainstream and locked down franchises like Monday Night Football and Sunday Night Baseball. When it couldn’t control a game’s presentation, it built a cocoon of analysis and opinion around it, ensuring viewers would tune in to an ESPN channel before and after the big game, and eventually utilize its platforms during. Through that two-pronged presentation and analysis approach, it became the conductor of the nation’s overarching sports conversation.
But that role of conductor must be constantly defended. The traditional networks have continued to challenge for presentation rights,[3] while Internet sites small and large offer widely distributed analysis and opinion, content previously controlled by shows like NFL Live and Baseball Tonight. Protecting that top spot has become a lot more difficult.
The QBR changes that. Instead of trying to strengthen its two prongs, ESPN created a new path. It developed a metric that will be central to the game, that allows the network to merge itself with the NFL and become an integral part of the game it covers.
From now on, any discussion involving NFL quarterbacks will include ESPN's QBR. League MVPs will be crowned based partly on ESPN’s QBR. Hall of Fame resumes will include ESPN’s QBR. Quarterbacks past and present will be evaluated–by front office gurus on down to water cooler procrastinators–at least partially based on ESPN’s QBR. The company will etch itself into the NFL’s history. Competitors like CBS and NBC can win more television rights or boost their websites’ unique views but, in the end, they’re still just outside observers. ESPN, however, will become an innovator of the sport, a title previously reserved for the Bill Jameses, Don Smiths and STATS LLC's of the sports world.[4]
However, unlike James or Smith or STATS, ESPN is a media behemoth that controls the national sports narrative. Leveraging the other two parts of its three-pronged business model, the QBR will become ubiquitous on Monday Night Football, on ESPN.com, within fantasy football and on any other platform where ESPN has influence. The company has already packaged its metric within a massive marketing campaign that, either arrogantly or prophetically,[5] hails 2011 as The Year of the Quarterback.
Competitors will not be able to hold out for long. The QBR will become a primary statistic for America’s primary sport, and each reference will mean free advertising for the only media outlet with the power to change a crucial element within the NFL.
Hope you enjoyed your ESPN-free Friday night, because from now on, ESPN is not just a gateway to the game. It is the game.
Photo via ESPN
[1] Think ESPYs, or the first NFL preseason game.
[3] As chronicled in Those Guys Have All the Fun, ESPN had designs on getting the rights to the more lucrative Sunday NFL games during the last round of negotiations, but got outmaneuvered by NBC and CBS and got stuck with Monday Night Football and no leverage for determining matchups.
[4] James is the godfather of advanced baseball statistics, while Smith invented the NFL’s passer rating in 1973. STATS bills itself as the "global leader in sports data, statistics and information."
[5] Likely both. Calling this year The Year of the Quarterback is like calling the 2012 MLB season The Year of the Pitcher. If it’s a historic year for quarterbacks, then great. If not, they still control so much of the action you can throw together some highlight packages and claim it’s historic anyway.
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