NBC

NBC

My one blog reader gave me some feedback so I have decided to try it out lets see how it goes. I have always been a get to the point type of person and I think filler is crap but I am going to try set up my point before actually telling you what it is.

At the beginning of the last NFL season NBC took over the rights to the Sunday Night NFL game held by ESPN and ABC. With this deal the NFL in their immense wisdom decided to move the game of the weak to Sunday Night instead of the traditional Monday Night Game. Fox still retained the rights to the JV conference (the NFC) and all games in which the road team was a member of the NFC conference. CBS retained the rights to the AFC and the games in which the away team was a member of the AFC conference. Along with this was another Thanksgiving Day game to be televised on the NFL network in prime time. And Thursday night games there after also to be placed on the NFL network.

I have my issues with the no fun league on the NFL network. The NFL network is about one step behind pay per view. It is not available in all markets and is only available on the high end cable/ satellite packages. My HD cable costs 80 bucks a month and I still don’t get the NFL network.

The reason you take History classes in school is because we need to look at the past and the problems so we can avert them in the future. The great depression was avoidable had some changes been made in hindsight. Now the NFL network is not the great depression, but the NFL needs to look at the past. The best example is Indy Car vs. NASCAR. When I was a kid in the 80s you could never find Indy 500 video games anywhere. The closest thing was Al Unser Jr.’s Turbo racing. And that was when he was a F1 driver. NASCAR on the other hand would put their name on anything to get more exposure. While Indy Car was protecting its trademark, NASCAR was gaining fans. Another good example is boxing. Promoter Don King came along and took Boxing matches off regular TV and put them on pay per view. It was a brilliant idea in the short term, but it ultimately killed boxing in the long run, because as Muhammad Ali got older, and retired, no one wanted to see the next guy box, where as he would gain more exposure on National TV. It also really bugs me that I can’t get the video of Bob Sanders knocking the piss out of Willie Parker on youtube.com either.

Back to my original point, sorry about that. Anyway back in the day you would watch your team play Sunday afternoon and as soon as the game was over you would turn to ESPN to watch NFL primetime, The Patriots Sports Network known as ESPN at the time, (because the Patriots sucked). Primetime was brilliant because if your team won you would watch to see the highlights, and if they lost well you had to sulk for a couple minutes. The Colts did a lot of loosing back in those days. Anyway the legend who invented the NFL highlight show is Chris Berman. It was football and it was entertainment. You could watch your highlights and it was always interesting to see what nickname for a player Berman could come up with. Nicknames included but are not limited too, Mike “Your in good hands with” Alstot, Joseph “Live and Let” Addai, Tom “Here’s the story of a man named” Brady, Jake “Daylight come and you’ve gotta” Delhomme, and the greatest of all time Andre “Bad Moon” Risen. The names even stuck in baseball as well. Tom Jackson was also a guy who knew what he was talking about and didn’t get into the usual color guy “he sucks,” “or he’s over rated” type of color guy. He was someone who could explain the game to the basic fan and not piss of the players.

CBS and FOX followed suit, although no one could match ESPN’s game day coverage. Terry Bradshaw is loud and annoying, and I couldn’t even tell you who is on CBS. This all went away last year when NBC basically bought the rights to the NFL post game show.

Last year it premiered and it was horrible. The coverage wasn’t bad, although I hate the Steelers and can’t stand “The Bus” as a player he isn’t bad at being a color guy. Bob Costas held his own in his first season. It was everything else that went with the broadcast. I honestly felt like I was watching the Olympics. The lights the angles the darkness made me feel like it was Olympic time. To their credit NBC does do a good job of not arguing stupid facts like; “take your pick Vince Young or David Garrard.” This is when Sean Salsbury argues with Jon Clayton over a stupid point on the Patriots Sports Network (ESPN).

In my opinion NBC made two huge errors this year when trying to fix their problem with the NFL postgame show that they bought the monopoly on. First and foremost they picked Keith Olberman to play the comic relief that Berman has on primetime, and they picked the worst possible match ups for their game of the week Sunday Night Game.

A little more back ground, Sunday Night used to be the night for the 2nd best game of the week. This was perfect because after a day of watching football you could prepare for Monday with the game on in the background or whatever. If it happened to be good you could watch it but mostly it was good because it was a solid game. Monday is obviously the worst day of the week. So Monday Night Football gives everyone something to look forward too on Monday. Mondays in the fall aren’t that bad because you can always watch football. Maybe what makes ESPN so good at what they do is that they are so in tune with their customer. I don’t think anyone does it better in all of business. You and me are who they target and no one and I mean no one hits it more on the head than they do. The commercials are funny, and the TV is entertaining.
NBC on the other hand is not in tune with me the typical NFL fan. They pick the exact same teams for that major game every week. It is the big market high fan base teams, Chicago (played twice), the New York Giants, Dallas Cowboys, Philadelphia Eagles, and Washington Redskins. Now the NFC East is known for its mediocrity. The Giants won the conference last year with a 9-7 record. NBC says that these big markets draw the biggest TV ratings, but I have always hated that theory. NBC made the most costly of all errors by not paying whatever it took to get the Colts vs. Pats game. How stupid can you get? Believe it or not this rivalry has never been hotter. These two teams are clearly the class of the NFL and have been for the last 8 years. The Patriots have 3 rings and the Colts have 1, but the Colts have bested the Pats the last 3 times, and are playing in the dome. Where I don’t care who you are it isn’t an easy place to play. It is the loudest stadium in the NFL and when those players run out of that ring I don’t care who you are that intimidates you. The November 4th match up with be another ESPN classic game. (I wouldn’t mind seeing the Patriots win that won, because it betters the chance of Jim Irsay excepting the Lamar Hunt trophy in Boston!)

The final flaw of NBC is highering Keith Olberman to play the comic relief that Chris Berman did so well on NFL Primetime. Keith Olberman is a pompous asshole who is holy than thou and knows it. Fist of all he isn’t funny. Second of all he has no credibility anywhere he goes because he got his start at ESPN. To me it’s like watching Stuart Scott talk about the war in Iraq. Stuart Scott is my second favorite ESPN personality, but him doing hard news isn’t his forte.

Last night Olberman went on a rant about how Green Bay got it right, by keeping the small town team in its small city, and based franchises like Indianapolis, Baltimore, St. Louis and Arizona for leaving their cities for higher ground. First of all Green Bay is a small town with a great football tradition. I love the way Favre plays the game and their tradition there is second to none. I wish Indianapolis could support a team like Green Bay supports its Packers. But he made it seem like Green Bay was Des Moines Iowa. Green Bay is small but so is Foxborough. So is Pontiac Michigan. Hell the Giants and Jets play in Jersey. Just because they play in a small market doesn’t mean they have a small fan base. I bet it takes longer for Giants fans to commute to a game than Green Bay fans living within a 100 mile radius of Lambau field.

The number one problem with the media in our day and age is not its liberalism. It is that it is out of touch with America that is the America that doesn’t live in New York or LA. Americans want to watch Tom Brady vs. Peyton Manning. We want to see what Vince Young can do, Reggie Bush, etc. Yeah I like watching Eli Manning play but dam put a freakin AFC team on once in a while. The AFC has the three best teams in the league New England, Indianapolis, and Pittsburg then maybe Dallas, but they will falter. You only have to be 10-6 to get a bye in the NFC anyway. I would much rather watch an up and coming crap team like the Cleveland Browns or Tennessee Titans than the 9-7 Giants.

NBC and the rest of the media need to see what life is like in Indianapolis, Green Bay, and Des Moines Iowa. They would make a lot more money if they got their heads outta their asses and paid attention. It’s the same reason why Blue Collar Comedy changed the face of Entertainment in America. It is no coincidence that after that show came out movies started getting better. NBC pay attention to your fans, your alienating them.