Joining the dark side: Adding the NFL Network
I gave in this week. I capitulated. I called Cox Cable and added the NFL Network.
For years, I’ve avoided putting Cox’s sports tier on my cable. And it wasn’t the money. Heck, it was only $4.50 a month for the NFL Network, ESPNU, ESPNClassic, ESPNNews, Versus, NBATV, MLBTV and a whole bunch of other stuff I’ll never watch. Truth is, that’s a heck of a bargain.
Fifty dollars a year? The Colts-Jaguars game Thursday night was worth a big chunk of 50 dollars a year.
The Colts-Jaguars game Thursday night was worth a big chunk of 50 dollars a year. (AP Photo/Phil Coale)
It wasn’t the money. It was the concept. It was more and more events that we’re accustomed to watching, moving to pay-TV.
Maybe I’m a child of the ’70s, when one of the great fears was that our epic sporting events were going the way of pay-per-view. Boxing was the culprit, having taken away all its great events and putting them in theaters. Ali-Frazier, Frazier-Foreman, Foreman-Ali. All were closed-circuit television. The fear was well-founded. I watched the 1977 OU-Texas game on closed circuit television, at Lloyd Noble Center.
Pay-per-view really hasn’t developed much. The only pay-per-view nowadays that I know of are for the fighting cards — mixed martial arts, boxing, etc. — and horrible OU football games that only complete wackos would buy. I mean, come on. OU-Idaho State for $40? Compared to a year’s worth of the NFL Network and all those other cable channels for $50? The world has gone mad.
But still, it struck me wrong that a league like the NFL could create a national demand for its product, could turn pro football into the national pastime, then create a network to show some of those games and make fans pay more to receive that network.
We’ve left the days when basic cable — and in the sports context, that means ESPN, ESPN2, TBS, TNT and FOX Sports — can be considered pay TV. Most of America, for better or worse, has cable television. But paying for more tiers of cable television so I could watch 8-10 football games? That struck me as a bad move, not because of the cost, but because of the effect.
I can’t imagine the Super Bowl ever being on cable television. But I never could imagine the BCS or the NCAA Tournament moving to cable, either, and the BCS goes to ESPN next season, while the NCAA is thinking about jumping to ESPN.
So I don’t know. I could see the NFL’s wild-card games moving to the NFL Network some day. If fans keep following along with whatever the NFL wants — add this network to your cable so you can get these games — then I don’t see how the end can be good. And when that happens, I didn’t want to be part of the problem. Now, of course, I am.
But this was a strange situation. My wife likes football and doesn’t mind watching with me. My sister-in-law lives nearby and loves the Dallas Cowboys; they play the unbeaten Saints on Saturday night in an NFL Network game. We’re going Christmas caroling Saturday night about 5:30. I love Christmas caroling. Anyway, I guess the old Christmas spirit got to me. I told my sister-in-law, we’ll go caroling, then come home and watch the Cowboys.
So call me weak. Call me sad. Call me a sellout. Just don’t call me Saturday night. I’ll be watching Dallas-New Orleans.
-------------Berry Tramel can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including AM-640 and FM-98.1. You can e-mail him here and follow him on Twitter @BerryTramel. Visit Berry's website here.
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Comments
Berry, I have to agree that I’m concerned with what the NFL might do next in regards to game coverage. I’m a Packers fan living in Ohio, and when the games aren’t nationally televised, I have to go to a bar with the “ticket” to see the game. In this economy, I really cannot afford $300+ a year for the Direct TV package, nor do I wish to change to a “contract” satellite provider. In my market, we generally get 7-9 games anyway, so “the Ticket” would ultimately cost me nearly $40/game for the ones I’m missing; a non-option. I would like to see a cable pay per view structure where out of market games might be purchased individually (10-15 dollars would be reasonable). I cannot see how making games less available to the public will help the sport grow, What do you think?
Which is worse? Paying $40 for OU-Idaho State, or driving 1600 miles round trip on Friday and Sunday to watch that game? Looking back, I don’t remember the game. I remember the Budweiser Tent and O’Connells but those don’t justify the drive either.
Tram, you can even write the cost of these channels off as a business expense since you must watch these games in order to do your job.
I’m on SSD and can barely afford extended cable. Having to pay more to watch 1 or 2 NFL games a year is ridiculous.
And what about all the other people in my situation?
I think this is being to greedy!
For $4.50 a month it’s like stealing. Are you kidding? The NFL Network, playoff hockey on Versus, the NHL Network, NBATV…that’ll be two dinners and some margaritas in El Paso for that same $54.00 spent all year long watching all these great events when a great sporting event is not going on in OKC. Speaking of hockey–I hope we get a little more hockey coverage intensive at the DOK once this AAA affilation with Edmonton becomes a publicly known done deal. What the heck, Berry—why have you waited so long to sign up? I guess I’ll have to tell them I can’t go snow tubing with them at the Brick on Saturday night…it’s the Cowboys vs. Dallas…whoo, baby.
MJ
I was too excited there..it’s the Cowboys vs.the Saints—even though we know Dallas can’t win in December.
MJ
Berry you’re such a goofball still. Miss the days that I worked with ya man! Hope you and your fam are doing well. I’m sure you still spoil ur lil riley bird like crazy haha. anyway gimme a shout sometime. i’d love to catch up with ya.
Consider yourselves lucky to even have a big-league cable station.
Many eastern Iowans have been sadlled with Mediacom Cable, which three years ago was mired in a contract dispute that temporarily dropped the local CBS affiliate (resolved just in time for the Indy-Chicago) Super Bowl.
Mediacom also spent the entire ’07 football and basketball seasons mired in a dispute over carrying the Big Ten Network, and this is in Iowa Hawkeye country no less.
Having channels like the NFL Network, MLB Network, NHL Channel, and the NBA channel are pipedreams at this point, but they did throw us a bone by getting back ESPNEWS and ESPN Classic after a multi-year hiatus.
Now comes word that due to ANOTHER contract dispute, many Hawkeye fans may miss out on the Orange Bowl and the Super Bowl if they don’t reach a resolution.
This is not piodunk Iowa here, this is Cedar Rapids, the second-largest city in the state.
Every time I visit Oklahoma I marvel at the sports programming options available with the same cable package I have here in Iowa. Enjoy it.
I can’t even bring myself to pay the $60 a year for regular cable, when I can get HD over the air for free, much less extra for premium cable.
This kind of reminds me of the beginnings of the AFL. In those days, there was NO football on TV, except for the NY Giants and the Chicago Bears. The NFL owners figured they’d lose attendance if they gave away the games for free. That opened the door for the “Foolish Club”, which is what the media called the original AFL owners. They put their teams in mostly non-NFL cities like Denver, KC, Houston, and Buffalo, then televised them back to the NFL cities. That’s why there are so many Oakland and Bronco fans in LA, for instance. It was the only pro football you could see without going to the game. Eventually, the NFL caught on and realized they could INCREASE the fan base geometrically by using TV. Don’t know if that would apply any more, so I guess they figure they can get away with the same kind of thing again now.
It is somewhat you can get the family pack Dish Network package for $20 a month, yet add the sports channels, and the price more than doubles. Think with highly paid professional athletes, have to get their money from somewhere.
In pre-cable days, when professional athletes salaries were similar to the average Joe, then you could get plenty of sports over the limited in number over the air channels.
Now I’m as much of a football fan as the next guy (or gal), but can understand how a non-sports fan would think it would be silly to watch grown adult men bash into each other in order to move an oblong shaped ball down the field, and spend plenty of money and time in the process (notice the excessive amount of commercials in football games in recent years?).
Yet one thing I won’t do is spend $50 to $100 or so to watch two guys try to beat the cr*p out of one another. In my humble, that is truly silly.