AN NFL TV GUIDE

TV and pro football aren’t always the perfect mix they appear to be.

In its more than 65 years of marriage to television, the backlash of the NFL’s decision to move the Green Bay – Chicago game on New Year’s Eve from day to night is yet another in a long line of slipups and mistakes.  Errors in judgement appear to be inevitable at least every few years in this relationship.  That it’s happened once again is, if nothing else, a sign of normality given the times.  

For 1956, the New York Giants reaped a whole $12,000 from their TV rights. With the number of zeros in that figure seemingly tripled today, it’s amazing the networks haven’t demanded more say about when (or where) games are played. The television audience replaced the live gate long ago in priority and importance.

The hand wringing and debate would begin in 1960 as the Packers got ready to play the Eagles for the NFL title in Philadelphia. Although the game was scheduled for Monday, December 26th, there were many in the media who felt even THAT date was too close to Christmas and the league was selling out to commercial interests. If only they knew what was to follow.

Ironically, it’s one time pro football might have deserved a pass. NFL commissioner Bert Bell had passed away late in 1959 and his successor, Pete Rozelle, was still getting settled into his new job. Yet by 1963, everyone, including Rozelle, should’ve known better.

No story about pro sports moving into the modern era is complete without mentioning all the difficulties caused by the JFK assassination and how the NFL insisted, during a weekend of national mourning, to still hang out its ‘business as usual’ sign. And while Pete Rozelle would say he regretted the decision to his dying day in 1996, more foulups and errors would follow, two in 1968.

One would come to be called the Heidi Game, on November 17th as NBC decided to forego the final minute of a Jets-Raiders game in Oakland. The gamble blew up in their face as Oakland scored twice in the final 50 seconds to pull out a 43-32 win and causing phone lines at NBC to be jammed for hours with calls from angry fans who missed the ending.

Meantime, CBS would face another crisis several weeks later as it showed the divisional playoff between Minnesota and Baltimore. The network found itself between a rock and hard decision while trying to please football fans and still cover the Apollo moon mission. Cutting away from a close game for news from space was not a popular choice. However, TV executives had learned a little from the Heidi disaster and saved themselves from a bigger uproar by replaying the end of the second quarter during halftime.

Asking no one’s opinion in particular, pro football ventured into uncharted waters with not one but two playoff games on Christmas Day, 1971. Although Miami would outlast the Kansas City Chiefs in double overtime during the longest game ever played, it would also bring more heat on the league when Christmas dinners were disrupted all over the country by men refusing to leave the TV set until the game concluded.

Surprisingly, the NFL took note and no games were played on Christmas Day for another 18 years. Nor is it a coincidence that as this practice was reinstated, Paul Tagliabue was now the commissioner.

Pro football fans under the age of 30 would never understand the blackout rule the NFL had in place for decades. It took an act of Congress, quite literally, to change it. Flaws in the system were everywhere and sometimes in unexpected places. It was evident at the end of the 1972 regular season as fans in Chicago were force fed the Bears-Eagles game from Philadelphia while being unable to watch Green Bay play Minnesota for the NFC Central title.

This doesn’t mean all was perfect in the years that followed, far from it. Getting set to make a speech to the nation on Sept. 6, 1983, someone got in the ear of President Ronald Reagan and urged him to ‘hurry it up’ as Monday night football was set to kickoff with the Dallas-Washington game. Facing re-election the following year as well as a football fan himself, it made sense to comply.

Following the 9/11 attacks, postponing all sporting events was made easy by the disruption in air travel. No one dared suggest, however, that the league give up a week’s worth of revenue.

Cutting into an NFL game, for whatever reason, has left TV executives in charge asking themselves only one question: is the news of sufficient importance that the audience would want to be interrupted?

During the playoffs particularly, that answer is always NO.