By A.J. Hayes
New England quarterback Tom Brady grew up idolizing Joe Montana in the 1980s, but in 2008, the San Mateo native is primed to eclipse the former 49ers great in the boyhood dreams department.
Brady already has three Super Bowl rings and is a near lock to equal Joe in the championship jewelry department next month. The dashing Brady is also a favorite of fashion designers and beautiful women, including current squeeze, Victoria’s Secret model Giselle Bunchen.
Then last Saturday night, three television networks did something that hasn’t occurred since Super Bowl I: They simulcast a single game -- one of Brady's.
But before you start believing every thing the San Mateo native touches turns to gold, the simulcast had less to do with Brady’s perfect spirals and dreamy looks and a whole lot more to do with the abysmal failure of the NFL Network.
Ever since the consolidation of the NFL and AFL in the mid-1960s, the best way to get a NFL fat cat excited is to mention pay TV. In recent years, the plan has finally come to fruition. First ESPN started broadcasting weekly games. Then in 2006, the NFL-owned NFL Network sprang to life, or rather staggered into the daylight.
The network would allow the 32 teams another way of augmenting their current television deals that nets $3.7 billion annually.
But so far all the NFL Network has managed to generate is an irate fans. It turns out that less than half the country’s cable TV subscribers have the league’s house organ included in their basic packages.
Such a fuss was kicked up by fans and the media that anyone outside of sports bar denizens would be able to watch Brady’s Patriots complete their perfect 16-0 season, that the league capitulated and allowed CBS and NBC to simulcast alongside the NFL Network.
The decision was embarrassing for the NFL because the historic game would have generated a ton of positive publicity for the fledgling network if the only venue for the game was on their airwaves. Instead all anyone was talking about was how lame the NFL Network as been so far.
But while the decision to bend to public pressure move offered immediate gratification, it would have been better in the long run if the game was blacked out across the country and really give viewers a chance to really kick up a fuss about what pro football viewing will be like in 10 years, when the only way to watch pro football on television will be by shelling out for cable TV football packages.
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Comments (1)
Absolutely, but it's not going to be an issue 10 years from now. It's going to again be an issue next season. The NFL doesn't have any plans to put the games it stole from fans back on local broadcast and ESPN. It's merely going to ram it's greed-machine, the NFL Network, back down the throats of the fans they claim to care so much about and take more games off TV.
Next season is going to produce thousands more fans, and most likely some of the same fans that were put-out this season, when the NFL Network airs another batch of games. This is needs to be stopped and it's sickening that the NFL can kick sand in the face of the fans that love the sport so much.
Posted by Mike | January 3, 2008 02:10 PM