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NFL's Propaganda Machine
Insults Fans Everywhere
December 13, 2007
Pro Football Weekly
By Hub Arkush
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It was 31 years ago that Peter Finch, playing the allegedly insane network news anchor Howard Beale in Paddy Chayefsky’s timeless classic “Network,” threw open his window and roared for the world to hear perhaps the most famous movie rant of all time, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”
At the risk of being far too simplistic, I report that Beale’s movie ire was piqued by the endless succession of trivia, nonsense, trash and outright lies his network was offering as relevance and truth.
For better than two years now, those of us who love the NFL have been listening to one of the great propaganda campaigns and lies of all time, that “Big Cable” is the Darth Vader of the NFL Network’s world and it, and it alone, is responsible for so many football fans being deprived of the ability to view in their own homes the eight NFL games the league broadcasts each season on its own network.
This, of course, is a load of complete horse manure, and what’s gotten me here is a column in the Chicago Tribune a week or so ago that called my attention to the Web site iwantmynflnetwork.com. Seeker of truth that I am, I checked it out and now “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”
Visit the site and you will immediately understand it is a product of the NFL. Then you will be smacked in the face by the major headlines, in all caps: “ATTENTION NFL FANS: BIG CABLE IS STILL BLOCKING FOOTBALL 24.7.” A slightly smaller subhead reads: “Time Warner, Comcast, Cablevision and others are forcing you to pay more to watch football or blocking the action completely.” Then it’s back to the much larger headline type with, “FIGHT BACK! TAKE ACTION NOW!”
Below all of that blather are two content boxes. The first, labeled “MAKE THE SWITCH,” enables you to type in your zip code and get information on satellite services you can switch to in your neighborhood and allegedly get the NFL Network and comparable services for free. The second is headed “CONTACT YOUR GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS” and it urges you to “Tell your government that cable companies are denying you access to NFL Network and its year-round programming including live NFL games.”
Finally comes my favorite, the channel navigation bars that aid you in learning more about how to “GET INVOLVED,” with choices like “Contact Government Officials,” “Write to the Media,” “Tell a Friend,” etc. Or my very favorite channel, “TRUTH ABOUT CABLE MONOPOLIES.” This last is at least somewhat believable because, of course, monopolies and antitrust violations are areas of some expertise to the NFL.
The simple, indisputable truth is that it was the National Football League — no one else — that took those eight game broadcasts away from its network partners, which pay it billions of dollars a year to air those games on completely free, over-the-air stations, and away from its cable partner, which pays it more than a billion dollars a year to air games on basic cable, for no purpose other than to line its own pockets. In fact, the NFL turned down a $400 million offer from Comcast-owned (read: “Big Cable”) Versus to air the games. Now it wants to charge “Big Cable” 70 cents per subscriber for the right to air its network and share in the advertising inventory, but “Big Cable” is the villain for wanting to add it to an extra-charge sports tier and charge us a little bit more?
Nowhere on iwantmynflnetwork.com can I find any reference to the fact that the courts have already ruled in favor of “Big Cable.” Essentially, the courts have stated that if the NFL will not allow “Big Cable” access to its “Sunday Ticket” package, which is currently available only via DirecTV satellite and for which subscribers pay a great deal more than what “Big Cable” wants to charge you for the extended sports tier it wants to put the NFL Network on, and since the NFL turned down the huge Versus offer to air the games on basic cable, “Big Cable” is the one on the right side of the law here.
At the end of the day, folks, this is just about greed. I’m getting the NFL Network at home on “Big Cable” because I’m paying the six bucks a month they’re charging me for the extended sports tier. I’m not happy about it, but it’s worth it to me. And I’m not defending “Big Cable” here — I know they’re pigs and they’re ripping me off. I’m just giving them the credit they’re due for being honest and arrogant enough to look me in the eye and admit it.
But for the National Football League to keep slapping us in the face with its position that we’re all ignorant enough to believe that it’s anyone but the NFL who caused this problem, that it is somehow a victim of “Big Cable” and that the league isn’t far and away the biggest pig at the trough, where’s Howard Beale when we need him?
The ultimate irony to all of this is that the NFL Network may unwittingly be supplying a unique solution to the problem. If it allows Bryant Gumbel to destroy one more game by not knowing the rules, having no clue which team is on offense or who’s on defense, and basically having no business doing NFL play-by-play whatsoever, I’m guessing most of us will have no interest in turning it on, at any price.
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