Gripe session

[Pyrite Gal]

There is more action in a football game than any baseball game. There is more action than any basketball game, or soccer game. There is as much action as in a hockey game, which has a lot less stops in action, and yet has two 20 minute breaks instead of one 15 minute break. Do you think perhaps there is a reason that players often do not feel completely healed from an NFL game until four days later? These guys, at least the starters, can't even play without the breaks in the game. Why do you think the Bills are using four DTs this year?

 

People have to make sacrifices for things. One of the reasons, for example, that there are more commercials and more stops in play in the NFL is because of Instant Replay. Well, IMO, Instant Replay is a great thing for the game. It's simply far too difficult for any human to get all these calls right with the speed off the game. I, for one, am very wlling to give up a little constant action to get the calls right. It's asking too much for the refs to do it right. That's a sacrifice as a fan I think we need to make. It's not that friggin' difficult to wait 60 seconds, get a beer or bag of peanuts or take a piss or talk to your buddy about the game. The games are great. The sport is great. Overall the TV coverage is great. Overall the NFL is the best run sports league in the history of the world. People seem to want all the innovations and all the advantages with none of the disadvantages.

 

Do you want to go back to the 60s or 70s when there was three or four games on a week with no Instant Replay, no scoreboard, no yellow line for first downs. Three cameras for replays instead of 6-7. But 2-3 less commercials?

745930[/snapback]

 

I would like to go back to see the NFL and the networks experiment with a coverage idea used once in the late 70s of doing an announcerless game.

 

 

I doubt this would happen because at least part of it then was the NFL and the networks seeing the growing star power of announcers like the Cosell and Dandy Don on MNF and the increasing amount of $ they began to command in contracts, the league did the experiment as a negotiating tool and option to keep these annoincers in a subordinate position.

 

However, the NFL was going slowly through the process of learning that the team owners could make a lot more $ through cooperation with their workers than through competition (a lesson which they finally learned after they kicked the NFLPAs but in the replacement player dispute of the mid-80s and the union under the leadership of Gene Upsahw threatening to withdraw for activity forcing the owners into the free market negotiating for individual employee services rather than parnering with the NFLPA to restrain trade with the draft and other activities.

 

The approach taken is fundamentally un-American as the individual is restrained from selling their services at whatever rate the market sllows, but there was so much money to be made from the networks that it has even reached a point where the NFL has agreed in the CBA to be the minoirity partner because there is so much money to be made if that is the cost of cooperation.

 

At any rate, the advent of modern communications technology and graphic techniques would allow for games to be broadcast using ambient sound and a steady supply on on-screen infiormation to keep viewers informed while basic info is kept on the screen as it is now.

 

This info would replace the occaisional useful nuggets of info provided by the play-by-play talent. I an mot against the "color-man" completely as this person at their best can provide useful game analysis. However, it is the rare color man who provides consistent entertainment (Dennia Miller was an acquired taste who was interesting for a couple of games but got pretty old IMHO with his stichk and continual and then more frantic attempts to use nickel words to show how smart he was. Dierforf is simply incorrect too often and just bad. Madden has more to add off the field with the video game than in the booth where his guttaral oomphs also got old fairly quick. The only color guy I miss really is Alex Karras' whose University of Mars line when a steaming Otis Sistrunk came on the screen was such a great deapan line aping an NFL coverage cliche that it simply reduced the broadcast team to tears and chuckles minutes after the line.

 

At any rate if a game analyst came in once a quarter or so and said something really relevant to the game which helped us understand whats going on behind the scenes or provided some context, that would be more than enough. Right now color guys seem to talk to hear themeselves talk.

 

Many fans simply turn off the TV sound and listen to the radio broadcast since the TV guys shift their allegiances noticeably during the game as they try to adopt a script for how the game is going. If one had more of an ability which is being developed and perfected by the networks as the offer a choice of audio feeds in English or Spanish to satisfy various consumers, it would be great to be able to choose coverage which gave one more of a feel for being at the game by giving you ambient sound (in fact with modern microphone technology it could bring you closet to the action in a way which exceeds the stadium experience for game action (though nothing will replace the experience of sharing the game with 75,000 of your closest friends and it being in the teens in terms of termperature)).

 

If I could choose a sound feed which dispenses with the commentators and allowed me to add augmented graphics to explain injuries or other game occurences such as odd rule applications or get off the field info, this would reallly give me a superior viewing experience.

[Kelly the Dog]

Well, you are right about sacrifices.  Everything, and I mean everything, does have its price.  Football is a great game to watch, and the NFL owners know it.  As some point, however, fans may start to think the price to pay is simply too high. that the commercials tax our patience and destroy the continuity of the game all too much.  It hasn't happened yet, but it may (especially if they continue with these 30 second live action spots).

 

The one manifestation of the owners' greed that really bothers me is the fact that they make you pay to listen to the games over the net.  What skin is it off the NFL's bones if some guy in some remote corner of the country wants to listen to his favorite team streaming over the net?  It certainly doesn't stop people who can do so from attending or watching games. The answer is that the NFL loses nothing by letting people do this, but the greedy ones saw a chance to profit on  people's loyalty to their teams.  The NFL has even tried to put a price on the statistics for their players, in order to make all fantasy leagues pay for these stats (fortunately, they failed).

 

Finally, the NFL (and other major sports leagues) consititute an outright violation of our country's antitrust laws (as pointed out earlier by a poster in this thread).  Congress has given them an exemption, but when they use this exemption to milk every penny out of their supporters, I start to see red.

 

It is greed, Kelly, sheer greed.  I know it when I see it, and it is shameful.

745980[/snapback]

The NFL on radio thing is a lot different IMO than what we were talking about. I would agree with you on that, and (probably) think it should be free. The only reason I wouldn't is if there were some explanation I never heard about rights. But I think that should be free, yes.