TV Stations, Leagues And Sponsors Have Changed My Attitude Toward Sports; That’s Why I Stopped Caring Which Team Wins Or Loses

Passover has recently ended. For those not of the Jewish faith, Passover commemorates the liberation of the Israelites from Egyptian slavery. During the Passover Seder, four questions are asked, by the youngest person. The answers explain the meaning of Passover to young children.

I’m often asked a fifth question by two younger members of my extended family; Which teams do I root for, given that I watch sports on television and have had a lengthy career in various aspects of the sports industry. My answer is always the same:” I stopped rooting for a team during my early teens, when it became clear to me that the cartels that rule all aspects of the sports world don’t care a hoot about the fans, a belief that was reinforced during my career in the business.

And I told them that the actions of NFL brass regarding the televising of games last season once again corroborates my long held belief.

• Here’s why. But first, I want to go on record regarding two things:
  
  1) I like sports and sports have been very, very good to me, first as a sports reporter and for much of my career as the sports marketing guru at Advance Public Relations, for 10 years, and at Burson-Marseteller, for almost a quarter of a century, before starting my own consultancy and being called in to formulate sports marketing strategies for various PR companies. (Although I must admit that as a sports journalist I couldn’t see myself spending a lifetime writing stories about hits, runs and errors or TDs for the remainder of my working days and asked to be transferred to a more important beat – politics or business. But before that happened the news outlet I worked at ceased publishing and one thing led to another, etc, eventually landing me into the sports marketing PR business.)
  
  2) I’m not a great fan of television. I agree with what Newton Minow said, in part, when he was the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) chairman to the convention of the National Association of Broadcasters on May 9, 1961. “Television is a vast wasteland.” And that was before those ridiculous reality shows became a staple of TV, or those before, mid-game or after games shows in which the “script” is for a coach or player never to say what they really think.

I originally stopped caring about which team won or lost because of the actions of team owners, threatening to move their franchise unless cities would pay for a stadium and raising the prices of tickets so high that many loyal fans couldn’t afford to go to a game, plus pricing hot dogs, peanuts and a drink as if a person was dining at a five star Michelin restaurant, instead of sitting next to foul mouthed, high and drunk fans.

But at least, until cable TV was forced upon viewers, I could sit back in the comfort of my home and watch a sporting event on television (without hearing juiced up fans shouting obscenities that were worse than any I heard during my days in the Army). But, slowly, that has been changing, as I predicted many years ago to the president of a Gillette company, when for eight years I managed its flagship sports marketing event, the fan balloting for Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game.

Asked what I consider could affect Gillette’s sports marketing sponsorships in the future, I said, “1 – “People not knowing which company was sponsoring an event because of the increasing clutter of brand commercials;” 2 – “The growing popularity of a “minor” sport in the U.S.,” (which in those days was soccer); and 3 – but most important, I said, “Was television’s movement to make audiences pay to watch an event.” That was in the early 1980’s. Today those predictions are now facts. (Paying to see a sporting event on TV began in the 1960’s but has accelerated in the past few years.)

Slowly, but assuredly, paid TV sports events are becoming the norm. I now predict that eventually watching a game on regular broadcast TV will become a rarity.

For several years, “tickets” to some games have been sold by Peacock, Cable and Amazon. The most recent trend of paying to see games occurred on Christmas Day, 2024, when the NFL awarded two games to Netflix, one featuring a halftime show by Beyonce’, (which I’d rather watch instead of listening to play-by-play announcers describe touchdown passes or interceptions like it was the first time they ever occurred). The day after Christmas another NFL game was televised on Prime. So Christmas Day was not a happy occurrence for fans who couldn’t afford the Netflix “ticket.” 

(The subscription service has a three-year deal for exclusive Christmas Day game rights. Not so Merry Christmas for NFL fans.)

On Dec. 24, a post by Fox Sports said, “This Christmas, NFL fans will be given the gift of a double-header for the holiday.” I always thought that gifts should be given without strings attached. But not so for the NFL and its pay to see partners. 

A few days later, on Dec. 27, the Wall Street Journal  (WSJ) published a story on the first page of its BUSINESS & FINANCE section about the Netflix games that quoted the streaming service’s chief content officer, Bela Bajaria. “Bringing our members this record-breaking day of two NFL games was the best Christmas gift we could have delivered,” said Ms. Bajaria.

On the same day, on page one of its main section, the WSJ published an article that said holiday spending showed a split, with gains driven by higher income households; lower income ones were squeezed by higher prices. It’s fair to assume that football fans in lower income households were blocked from having a Merry Football Christmas by the money hungry NFL, which sold its games to Netflix despite what Ms. Bajaria. said.

In its Dec. 28-29 edition, the WSJ published another article headlined, “Netflix’s Big Game Is Just Getting Started.” Football fans looking for information about details of the Christmas Day games had to be disappointed. The entire article was about Netflix’s entry into the pay-to-see sports business and said, “The NFL broadcast and last week’s deal to stream the next two women’s World Cup events suggest Netflix is finally on the verge of becoming a major player in live sports.”

It’s only a matter of time that what is considered “free” TV sporting events will not be available to viewers. But in actuality people have been paying to see “free” sporting events for decades; the ticket prices are included in monthly cable bills.  

It’s been decades since beer commercials were allowed on NFL (and other leagues) TV games broadcasts. Then a few years ago, hard liquor commercials were added to the mix, followed by gambling commercials.

The Christmas Day present delivered to NFL fans by the leagues, sports marketing sponsors and television stations was “a devil’s choice:”

Subscribe to those pay-to-see services or forgo those Netflix games and, instead, use the money to bet on one of the legalized bookie concerns that are prevalent on TV sports events. And while you’re deciding what to do, “Drink responsibly,” – but drink.

Even though I’m still playing the same price for a “sports package,” which is forced upon me by my cable operator, Optimum, and for the last few years have not been able to see games that are not televised on cable since the trend to streaming is picking up and blocking out previously available games, I’ve yet to receive a refund from Optimum. Less games, higher costs to customers seem to be their business plan.

As for me, my feelings regarding the teams that win or lose on Christmas Day next year, or any other year, can best be expressed by my saying “”Bah humbug.”