I have never pretended to have “sources” deep within the NFL structure who tell me things in sotto voce about the inner workings of the league. So, nothing here comes from that kind of “Deep Throat insight”. However, I do have a good acquaintance whose job it is to try to get as much information about the NFL into the public knowledge base and so he does have some access to “sources within the NFL”. I spoke with him this morning about the Super Bowl game; of course, the huge success of that game as a TV event came up. In case you’ve been hung over since Sunday night, the Colts/Bears game drew the second highest Super Bowl audience in history and the third largest TV audience in history. I said to my friend that it was a shame that these kinds of ratings didn’t happen in the final year of a TV contract because that would give the league a humongous lever when it came to negotiating the next TV deal.
His response was that it might not be necessary because by the time the current TV deals expire, the NFL might consider taking the playoffs and maybe even the Super Bowl to pay-per-view. My friend says that the NFL is surely thinking along those lines in the 15-20 year time horizon but that there might be enough credibility in that concept to allow its use as a negotiating lever even in the next TV negotiations. I believe the current deal with FOX, CBS and NBC expires in 2012 and that the current deal with ESPN expires in 2014.
I think the success/failure of the NFL Network – particularly the degree to which NFLN penetrates the cable TV market as a part of “basic cable packages” around the country – will be the real leverage threat for the NFL in the next set of negotiations. But somewhere down the road, the playoffs and the Super Bowl will become a package pay-per-view deal. Now, if I were a candidate for the presidency in 2012 – stay calm, I’m not even hinting that might be possible – I’d surely come out in favor of the Super Bowl on free TV and I’d be sure to make it known that the regulatory arm of the government in my administration would not look favorably on taking these games to pay-per-view TV. That’s a position I’d stake out early in the campaign and it’s one that millions of people can relate to.
Memo to Everyone: Watch and enjoy the Super Bowl games as much as you can over the next decade while they are still free. They won’t be all that much longer…
Do you remember about ten years ago when some addleheaded folks suggested that the sport of soccer should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize because it was a common denominator to bring people together? Juxtapose that Pollyanna thinking with what happened in Sicily over the weekend. In the midst of a game between Palermo and Catania, fan violence in and around the stadium reached such a level that police had to fire tear gas into the crowd to try to quiet things down; as you might guess, that caused a stoppage in play while the air cleared. Then after the game, rioting got a lot worse; hundreds of people were trapped in the stadium; a police officer was killed; authorities found the makings of several “crude bombs”, arms and drugs in the debris clean-up after peace had been restored; and the government decided to stop all soccer games in all of Italy for the weekend. Yessir, whenever I think of the Nobel Peace Prize there are three things that always leap to mind:
1. The agreement between Adolf Hitler and Neville Chamberlain in Munich to bring “peace in our time” to Europe and the world.
2. Any action by Kofi Annan in his tenure at UN Secretary General to resolve any dispute anywhere in the world which had more basis than the debate over “tastes great” versus “less filling”.
3. Soccer fans coming together in displays of sportsmanship and goodwill during and after a hard-fought match with a longstanding rival.
Soccer in Italy is a mess – even when viewed from afar and only once in a while. The World Cup championship from last summer didn’t do anything to validate Italian soccer; it merely awarded a trophy to the team that happened to win a specific tournament. Don’t forget, soccer in Italy was found to have rigged matches just six months ago and an icon of Italian soccer committed a defenestration suicide just days before he was going to have to testify under oath at a trial about fixed soccer games. Rioting at games – and before and after games too – is commonplace and now we have people dead as a result of something as silly as a sporting event.
And what do the folks who run soccer think they need to do to try to bring all of this back to the realm of sanity? Well, the new president of Europe’s governing body for soccer pledged to work diligently with the Italian soccer authorities to “end the violence”. Way to go out on a limb there, Chief!
Most of the soccer clubs in Italy don’t own stadiums and so they don’t assume any responsibility for stadium security or crowd control. In fact, many of the stadiums don’t even have turnstiles or people to try to assure that ticket-holders can sit in the seats they paid for. Do you think that might put a few people on edge even before the opening kick-off? And let’s not even discuss the degree to which “adult beverages” might play into the atmosphere at an Italian soccer game…
So the latest proposal from the Sports Minister in Italy is to allow games to proceed but not to allow fans in to see the games in those stadia where security measures are inadequate. Please remember that the latest rioting started outside the stadium in Catania so even if these measures were in place, it is not certain that these riots could have been avoided. Another governmental proposal suggests that the soccer clubs be forced to sever their ties with their fan clubs. The basis for this thinking is that members of many fan clubs have “extremist political views” and they bring added tension and emotion to an already charged atmosphere. I’m no sociologist or political scientist, but just how will severing these ties between a team and a fan club alter people’s extremist political views? And how will severing those ties prevent those with “extremist political views” from going to games and acting out their inner anger?
According to a TV soccer analyst in Italy, Marco Mazzocchi, there exists a quid pro quo between soccer clubs and politicians in Italy. He said:
“Soccer is a business that provides votes for politicians. All these fans can vote, and these club owners can often control votes.”
How great is that? These fans – the ones who make it such that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee needs to sit up and take notice – are the ones who get to influence elections in Italy. All I proposed here was for a Presidential candidate in 2012 to advocate keeping the Super Bowl on free TV; I guess that woud not play to the “extremist political views” of som Italian sports fans. And they say that the fans in Philadelphia are over the top…
Finally, let’s hear from someone whose sporting accomplishments have nothing to do with violence or pay-per-view greed. Here’s what Henry Aaron had to say:
“It took me 17 years to get 3000 hits in baseball. I did it in one afternoon on the golf course.”
But don’t get me wrong, I love sports…