Little Yellow Line

Stan Honey is a word class sailor. He has won eleven trans-pacific races, held the world record for sailing around the world and was named the Rolex Yachtsman of the year in 2010 (because of course Rolex sponsors that sport). The capstone on all his nautical achievements was placed in 2012 when he was enshrined in the National Sailing Hall of Fame.

Nolan Bushnell is a world class inventor. In 1972 he co-founded Atari which kicked off the now 50 yearlong boom in the video game industry. In total, Bushnell has created nine different companies ranging from Anti-Aging Games to Chuck E. Cheese’s. His work in video games led to him being inducted into the Video Game Hall of Fame, and the Consumer electronics Hall of fame.

In 1983, using a portion of his Atari wealth Bushnell purchased a 67-foot racing yacht he christened “Charlie”. It was aboard Charley that Bushnell and Honey would connect. The two struck up an immediate friendship because in addition to being a world class sailor, Honey, just like Bushnell, is also a world class inventor. Before the voyage was completed Bushnell had agreed to invest $500,000 into Stan Honey’s budding venture Etak.

Etak certainly never became anything close to a household name. You couldn’t pick out their logo from a lineup, and you most likely have no idea what they did. But you almost certainly rely on the technology they created. Most every commercial GPS system available today, from Google Maps to Garmin handheld GPS devices, can trace their roots back to the early digital navigation systems developed by Etak. With Etak, Stan Honey changed the way the world travels. His system made paper maps and atlases obsolete and save us all countless hours in the car every year. Today’s story, however, is not about GPS. It is about Stan’s other invention. His little yellow line.

In 1968 football became the most popular sport in America.  Its overall viewership had been skyrocketing since the early 1960’s and the additional of the Super Bowl in 1967 only further propelled it past baseball. That growth continued unchecked until 1980 when suddenly viewership began to shrink. For twenty years NFL games lost viewers until the early 2000’s when San Honey, and his little yellow line turned that trend around.

Many of you have probably connected the dots by now. Stan is the inventor of the yellow line that is superimposed onto the field that shows viewers at home how far the team on offense needs to move to make a first down. It is such a subtle change, but the introduction of the line made a massive improvement to the watchability of football, and it showed up in the Data.

While the line can seem so simple while watching a game on your couch, the initial development and implementation was anything but. The process involved four special cameras, seven computers and a complex system that allowed all the components to continuously communicate with each other. Those systems had to account for everything from moving players, to shaking cameras, to the slight crown in the surface of every field that allows water to drain. If that was not difficult enough, Stan and his team had to do it in complete secrecy. ESPN wanted to surprise its viewers with the unveiling of the technology. So, on September 27, 1998, Stan watched nervously as the Ravens and Bengals took the field. While the line may have appeared a bit shaky in those first few games, it worked. And even more importantly, fans loved it.

That reception by viewers was a far cry from Stan’s first foray into sports entertainment. In 1996 his company, Sportvision, had introduced a similar technology that caused the puck to glow on the screen during NHL games. It also created glowing trails behind the movement of the puck creating a visual effect like a comet moving across the screen. While the technology behind the glowing puck was nothing short of a breakthrough, viewers hated it. They reported that it made the screen too busy. It was overwhelming. It distracted them from the action. It was so bad that the puck tracking lasted no more than a few games. 

While the technology on the backend was similar, the differences in the final product were stark. The line to gain showed fans what their team was aiming for. It gave them valuable information that helped them contextualize future events. The glowing puck however, showed fans what had already happened. It highlighted what their team had already done and could no longer do anything to change.

The line to gain, was just enough to be helpful, but the glowing puck was so much that it drove viewers crazy. This concept is also true with financial planning and budgeting. Having a financial plan that outlays your largest goals can prove to be invaluable. Having a general budget that helps you stay on track with spending helps you maintain your pace towards those goals. But plans and budgets that get too far into the minutiae all have one thing in common.  Failure.  And the reason they fail is the same as the glowing puck. They become so overwhelming, so distracting, and so frustrating, that most people simply abandon them to sit uselessly on the sidelines.

When it comes to your personal finances, you need that little yellow line. It can be a lot of things. For some the yellow line is saving up for a new car. For others it is paying off a student loan. Whatever it may be, simply having one will help lead you to financial success. But I would at the same time caution you against the glowing puck. Having an app on your phone that alerts you to every dollar you spend will most likely lead you to frustration and abandonment of your goals. And I prefer to see people reach their goals.