Putting sprint data on the broadcast graphic tells the viewer nothing

Distance covered and top speed have become television furniture, filling airtime while explaining none of what just happened.

Halfway through the second half a graphic appears. Two midfielders, side by side, with distance covered in kilometres and a number of sprints. The commentator reads it out, says one of them has been everywhere, and the game continues.

What did anybody learn? Not whether either player was in the right place. Not whether the running was useful. Eleven kilometres of running in the wrong direction is still eleven kilometres, and the graphic cannot tell the difference.

I am not against data on screen. I am against data chosen because it exists rather than because it explains. The tracking systems that produce those figures can also produce things that would genuinely help a viewer understand a match. How high the defensive line has been, and how that has changed since the goal. How far apart the two banks are. Which zones a team has actually entered the final third through. Those are pictures, not numbers, and a five second animation of a defensive line creeping up would tell a casual viewer more about the last ten minutes than any table of kilometres.

Broadcasters know this. A few do it well in the studio at half time, where there is time to explain. Almost nobody does it live, because live graphics have to be understood in two seconds by somebody who has just walked in with a drink, and a number is easier to read than a shape.

That is a real constraint and I have some sympathy. But the current compromise has settled on the wrong side of it. Distance covered is easy to read and means almost nothing, so it is not actually a compromise. It is a number that looks like analysis, and its main function is to give the commentary team something to talk about during a lull.

The thing I would ban outright is the sprint count comparison between a winger and a centre-back, which appears constantly and compares two jobs that have nothing in common.

If a graphic cannot change how you watch the next five minutes, it is wallpaper with decimal places.