OT-NF: Merry NFL Christmas

[4th&long]

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/2024/0 ... -contract/

>>  Netflix has officially acquired the NFL’s Christmas Day slate this season and at least one game on the holiday in the subsequent two years.

The NFL and Netflix have entered into a three-year deal in which the streamer will carry at least one Christmas Day game each season, including both of this year’s contests, it was announced Wednesday. Radio host and NFL analyst Boomer Esiason was first to report that the Netflix was a possibility for the Christmas games. <<

NF the liar CEO (of course he lied about not wanting sports, he said that before they got their Ad system in place which was the real reason) of coure wanted live sports.  NFL wants to be in bed with all major media to make sure they stay in line or they get cut off.

This is why alternative sports leagues are rising on OTA/Cable.  They need programming and the big sreamers are marching in.

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

Well, that settles it. All it takes is a few hundred million dollars for the NFL to break every rule and promise it has ever made. Oh, by the way, Fox already owns the right to Christmas games, so this is basically stolen content Netflix is pirating.

I hope Netflix's system crashes just like it always does whenever it tries to do live events.

[MGB01]

Oh look, something else I need to be outraged about from the usual fauxrage machine and all the ****bloggers.........................

Boo hoo, blame Silver and Cuban if you want to go after somebody. It was Silver's great idea to challenge the NFL in Sacramento, a few days after the Hawks won the Super Bowl and after Stern had spent the previous year c-blocking the Kings move to Seattle, then a few weeks later Cuban with his "ten years away" (from being ten years away I'm guessing) tirade that only Florio seems to worship anymore--now the NBA's chasing the same bag the NFL's controlled for years, and the NFL barely has to lift a finger to smack them right back down into a distant second. That working out for ya?

[XFL4ever]

I can't keep up with all the streaming services anyway. If I don't have a way to stream a game I'll go to the Westwood One radio website and hear play-by-play. They always stream the radio broadcasts of Thursday Night Football, Sunday Night and Monday Night, and the holiday games too. 

[MGB01]

I like this latest media talking point that the fan is entitled to watch all 272 games. Um, WHAT?

We're having the discussion about whether an eight-team 10-week league needs to have all 40 regular season games nationally televised (which FOX cut three of them and the latest game switch says that there's a possibility of a fourth on deck), but all the sudden something that's totally impossible should just be a right?

You couldn't watch all 256 before Sunday Ticket came along, and in the interim the NFL got into cable (ESPN) and added a second (TNT). Then with ST in the fold they went back to one (ESPN) full-time and added their own network, and this all at least a good decade before their first streaming attempt (Yahoo) and then expansion of the schedule.

Yet it's a mini-uproar that the NFL gave games to NBC and FOX on 12/21 (blame the CFP for keeping it exclusive to ESPN anyway or this wouldn't be happening).

The NFL will stop doing this when they have serious opposition, the media and the NBA aren't it.
 

[GregParks]

I like this latest media talking point that the fan is entitled to watch all 272 games. Um, WHAT?

We're having the discussion about whether an eight-team 10-week league needs to have all 40 regular season games nationally televised (which FOX cut three of them and the latest game switch says that there's a possibility of a fourth on deck), but all the sudden something that's totally impossible should just be a right?



 

I think you could make an argument that putting all UFL games on TV helps as job #1 should be getting your product out there as much as possible for people to discover. That and exposing the teams to fans at a national level would in theory help fans that don't have a local team choose one to root for and get invested. And right now it's not like their inventory of games makes it impossible to find time for them - if they expand, then obviously that becomes an issue (as we see with other, bigger leagues). But when the current major issue for your league is awareness, putting as many games on as possible should be a positive.

[MGB01]

I like this latest media talking point that the fan is entitled to watch all 272 games. Um, WHAT?

We're having the discussion about whether an eight-team 10-week league needs to have all 40 regular season games nationally televised (which FOX cut three of them and the latest game switch says that there's a possibility of a fourth on deck), but all the sudden something that's totally impossible should just be a right?







 

I think you could make an argument that putting all UFL games on TV helps as job #1 should be getting your product out there as much as possible for people to discover. That and exposing the teams to fans at a national level would in theory help fans that don't have a local team choose one to root for and get invested. And right now it's not like their inventory of games makes it impossible to find time for them - if they expand, then obviously that becomes an issue (as we see with other, bigger leagues). But when the current major issue for your league is awareness, putting as many games on as possible should be a positive.

Get back to me if they keep "CurFlop" as a standalone game on 6/2


But I just posted on the 6/1 switch, which is to accommodate the first Caitlin Clark/Angel Reese WNBA showdown, and considering the first Larry/Magic meet wasn't shown nationally (the second one was two weeks later on CBS but not the first) during a time of all sorts of NBA TV problems, yeah I can see where it's important where you've got stars and/or teams to push.

But considering the meat of the ratings success has come over the first six weeks and now with all but one spot decided, and will likely be on Sunday, and will take a breather until the playoffs shouldn't this warrant another look in the offseason?

[GregParks]

I like this latest media talking point that the fan is entitled to watch all 272 games. Um, WHAT?

We're having the discussion about whether an eight-team 10-week league needs to have all 40 regular season games nationally televised (which FOX cut three of them and the latest game switch says that there's a possibility of a fourth on deck), but all the sudden something that's totally impossible should just be a right?







 

I think you could make an argument that putting all UFL games on TV helps as job #1 should be getting your product out there as much as possible for people to discover. That and exposing the teams to fans at a national level would in theory help fans that don't have a local team choose one to root for and get invested. And right now it's not like their inventory of games makes it impossible to find time for them - if they expand, then obviously that becomes an issue (as we see with other, bigger leagues). But when the current major issue for your league is awareness, putting as many games on as possible should be a positive.

But considering the meat of the ratings success has come over the first six weeks and now with all but one spot decided, and will likely be on Sunday, and will come back for the playoffs shouldn't this warrant another look in the offseason?

This is where the network and league may have diverging priorities: The networks want to ensure bigger ratings, so maybe they WOULD prefer regionalizing games to maximize those ratings, but league admin (and at least half the ownership) would prefer having all games televised for the reasons I mentioned above. We'll see whose priorities win out.

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

I like this latest media talking point that the fan is entitled to watch all 272 games. Um, WHAT?

We're having the discussion about whether an eight-team 10-week league needs to have all 40 regular season games nationally televised (which FOX cut three of them and the latest game switch says that there's a possibility of a fourth on deck), but all the sudden something that's totally impossible should just be a right?

You couldn't watch all 256 before Sunday Ticket came along, and in the interim the NFL got into cable (ESPN) and added a second (TNT). Then with ST in the fold they went back to one (ESPN) full-time and added their own network, and this all at least a good decade before their first streaming attempt (Yahoo) and then expansion of the schedule.

Yet it's a mini-uproar that the NFL gave games to NBC and FOX on 12/21 (blame the CFP for keeping it exclusive to ESPN anyway or this wouldn't be happening).

The NFL will stop doing this when they have serious opposition, the media and the NBA aren't it.

 

I think there's a distinction to be made here. There's a difference between being able to see all 272 games, and being able to see a game on television at any time the NFL is playing.

Plus you bring up the cable example. Yeah, they moved into cable in the 80s (after the USFL was going to do that). But cable was around $30 a month (which would extrapolate to around $70 today)—and, if it were available where you lived, you got a game in every time slot. Today, if you want to watch the NFL, you have to have cable (for ESPN and the handful of NFL Network exclusive games), AND four separate premium streaming services: ESPN+, Peacock, Amazon Prime and now Netflix. ON TOP OF CABLE. That's leaving out Sunday Ticket, the only streaming package that you can buy as a standalone.

That defeats the whole point of what a la carte cord-cutting was supposed to be. I like football (I'm on a football message board). The NFL makes enough money to cover its contracts and then some. Why are they making me buy a bundle of Netflix programming, which is by far the most expensive streamer right now, to watch two games on (of all holy days) Christmas? And then if I want to watch the playoffs—and mind you, 10 years ago, they tried putting a playoff game on cable but realized how unethical it was so they went back to putting it over-the-air nationwide... but now it's OK to put it on a premium streamer's bundle.

Netflix just made the same mistake that cable did. Cable has been on an implosion for the past 10 years because people left for streaming where they could pick and choose what they wanted to pay for. And now the NFL is taking that away... for what?

Do they think we don't have options? I know most of the pro competition plays in the spring, but we have college ball, we have high school, we have other sports that don't nickel-and-dime everyone.

[johnnyangryfuzzball]

While I'm ranting, I'm also going to point out that this past week, the NFL slipped up and admitted that they designed their schedule around the Taylor Swift Eras Tour so that Swift could attend 14 out of the Chiefs' 17 games. Have you ever seen such a naked pandering to one person?

You would think, after the Kaepernick fiasco and the years upon years of declining ratings with Tom Brady outstaying his welcome, that the NFL would be aware that it can only push its fans so far.