Top speed on screen tells you almost nothing

Tracking data has given broadcasts a new toy, and the numbers they have chosen to show are the ones that mean the least.

A winger runs onto a through ball, and a number appears next to him. Thirty-four point one kilometres per hour. The commentator says something admiring. Then play continues and everybody forgets about it, correctly, because the number changed nothing.

Peak speed is the tracking metric broadcasts love, and it is close to useless as live information. It tells you a player is quick, which you already knew from watching him for ten seconds. It does not tell you when he started the run, whether he timed it against the last defender's shoulder, or whether the whole thing was pointless because the pass never came. A quick player who runs at the wrong moment is a problem, not an asset, and the speed readout will make him look magnificent.

The same applies to distance covered, which is worse still, because it rewards the midfielder who runs around chasing the game and penalises the one who is positioned so well that he barely has to move.

The tracking data can support genuinely interesting live graphics, and a few producers have started to find them. Show me the distance between a defensive line and the goalkeeper as a side prepares to press, because that gap is the whole risk they are taking. Show me how many defenders were goal-side at the moment a cross was struck. Show me a marker on the player who has just made the run that dragged a centre-back out of position, since that is the action the camera will miss.

In cricket the equivalent is the wagon wheel that appears after a batter is out, which is decoration, versus the graphic that shows you where a bowler has pitched his last twelve deliveries to this particular batter, which tells you what the plan is and lets you judge whether it is working.

The test is simple. Does the number change what you look for on the next play? Peak speed does not. It goes on screen because it is easy to compute, easy to understand, and produces a satisfying big figure.

That is a marketing standard, not an editorial one.