King Kaufman's Sports Daily
Packers vs. Cowboys on NFL Network, 75 million households shut out. The NFL should trust its product. Plus: College football.
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Nov. 29, 2007 | For the first time this season Thursday night, a football game that anyone actually wants to watch will appear on the NFL Network. The schedule-maker hit a home run. The Green Bay Packers and Dallas Cowboys, both 10-1, meet in Dallas, with the winner holding the top seed in the NFC, which means home-field advantage throughout the playoffs if they hang onto it.
It would have been the Game of the Season most seasons, though this year it doesn't have quite the same pregame buildup as the Week 9 Game of the Century between the New England Patriots and Indianapolis Colts, both undefeated at the time.
The big difference between that game and this one is that just about everyone in the United States could watch that one from their living room couch. Only people in greater Cleveland or Houston or without working televisions were shut out.
This time around, people who want to watch the game and who live in the 75 million or so households without the NFL Network are going to have to find their way to sports bars or pretend they like their neighbors who have it.
The Colts beat the Atlanta Falcons on Thanksgiving night in the NFL Network's first game this year. You were sleeping off the tryptophan.
As you no doubt know if you care, the NFL is in a protracted whizzing match with the Time-Warner and Comcast cable companies over carriage of the NFL Network. The league wants to charge upward of $7 per household per year, which is a lot in that racket, and have the network be carried on the basic tier, as it is by some cable companies and the satellite providers Dish Network and DirecTV.
Time-Warner and Comcast, arguing that the NFL Network is a niche channel, want it confined to a premium tier, so that the only people who have to pay the premium for it are those who want to watch it. The NFL counters that football fans shouldn't have to pay for premium sports channels they don't want just to get the NFL Network. It's a standoff.
The league's demand for a spot on the basic tier is inconsistent with its strategy regarding the out-of-market package, Sunday Ticket, which is limited to DirecTV.
On the one hand, the NFL wants its product widely available, on the basic tier, and it's not above ginning up a phony grass-roots-style Web site, iwantnflnetwork.com to make the populist point that Americans deserve access to their football.
On the other, it wants to restrict access, which it does by limiting the Sunday Ticket to DirecTV -- a privilege for which DirecTV pays a pretty premium.