Hey, NFL - I Was Thinking...

I was watching football over the Holiday weekend and was amazed at the number of empty seats in the stands. LP Field in Nashville, home of the Tennessee Titans, a decent team with a 6-5 record, was maybe half empty. An optimist might call that stadium half-full, but when you're talking about an NFL venue, you would rather be Lambeau Field, a stadium that would sell out even if the Packers were winless well into the season. Qualcomm Stadium in San Diego also had large sections of empty seats, a strange thing when the Denver Tebows were in town, the hottest topic in all of sports right now.

Television coverage for a football fan can be very frustrating, particularly if you rely on the networks and don't have some pricey premium package. (Let's not even talk about the ridiculous dispute between the NFL Network and the cable giants, who can't come to terms, thus depriving us from even considering a pricey premium package.) So if you live on the East Coast, it will be a rare day when you get to see the Seahawks, the Raiders or the 49ers play. Down here in Florida, we are subjected to Buccaneers, Dolphins or Jaguars games; three teams that make up the Triangle of Suck in the NFL. If we aren't being made to watch them stink up the field, then the networks assume we want to see the Patriots. Recent weekends, I have seen more of Tom Brady and that homeless guy who coaches the Patriots than I have my own dog.

When football is not on, the Sports Centers of TV and the web or the Sports Sections of print and online journalism are talking about football. It is, no one can argue, the new national pastime. We don't give a crap about baseball, in comparison. We eat it up, can't get enough of it, and will watch the sorriest matchup in history if it is the only game on TV. 

Which brings me to my point. A football fan will watch any game if it is the only game available. So...WHAT IF...the NFL played six days a week? (My original plan called for seven days a week, but I'm reminded that Saturday is college football day, and that would not sit well with the American football watching public to mix it up like that.)

The season would still be 17 weeks long, you'd just have fewer games per day. There are 32 teams, which makes 15 games a week, allowing for two teams having a bye every week. So, two games on Monday, two on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. On Sunday you'd have two early games, two late games and one night game. If a team plays on a Monday, to avoid fatigue and allow for jet-lag recovery, that team plays the following week on a Tuesday.  It would be a scheduling nightmare, to be sure, but not one that some innovative programmer couldn't overcome. A fan could conceivably watch every game all season long, granted with a little back and forth on the remote control between the games happening simultaneously.

What about the other TV shows that would get bumped if CBS, FOX or NBC were to take this on? Oh, how sad it would be if 2 Broke Girls or Whitney or one more CSI wasn't available. Move it to another night or time. If the networks follow the money, which they will, they know that the NFL is a ratings bonanza. Let ESPN and ESPN 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and The Ocho get in on the bidding. Advertising, dollars, ratings, licensing, perhaps even stadium attendance will be affected. (We all know that a nationally televised game fills seats better than one only available in the local market.)

I'm sure there are too many interests involved in a plan like this for it ever to really happen, the most powerful likely being the NFL and their precious NFL Network, but I'm throwing it out there. Football fans and football haters are invited to weigh in in the comments section. Tell me why I'm wrong, why this won't work, or what we could do to make it happen. If you're a fan of Whitney, just be quiet. That show is getting canceled and you know it.    

About That Tim Tebow Anti-Abortion SuperBowl Ad

 

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Weekend Fake News Wrap

In response to new allegations of marital infidelity on the part of Tiger Woods, a host of advertisers and sponsors are considering dropping Woods' image and name from their product lines. Executives at Perkins Restaurants, while not a sponsor, are said to be pleased that their business is frequented by the erstwhile family man and are reportedly enjoying the free exposure.


In the wake of his team's devastating loss to No. 2 Alabama, friends of Florida's Tim Tebow have expressed concerns that the wholesome, Evangelical quarterback may be taking the defeat a little too hard.

Later, Sooners

People hate gloating winners, so be warned.

In their defense, the deck was stacked. From the location of the game (Florida) to the biased media clearly in the tank for Tim Tebow, (God's second-favorite Son) the Oklahoma Sooners were up against a wall. How do you rewrite a history written before the earth was formed?

As the game was ending and the coach being doused with Gatorade (invented at the University of Florida, by the way) I carried on a tradition instituted by my brother-in-law, currently serving in Iraq. If the Gators win, you must jump in the pool, regardless of weather conditions. It was cold, but if Urban Meyer has to endure a Gatorade bath, taking a cold midnight dip is the least I can do. And... I support the troops.

One of my guilty pleasures is visiting the hometown newspaper sites of teams the Gators beat up on. I like to read the rants of angry fans calling for the coach's resignation, or arm-chair speculating on how they would've handled that 4th and goal situation, if only they were a college football coach and not a fat loser fan of the beaten team who may or may not have discontinued beating his wife. And they always dump on Tebow, because they are bitter Satanists. But we still pray for them; that they may someday see the Light.

From The Oklahoman comes this picture of pre-game Sooners fans, still happy and hopeful as they stand before the bowl game's logo, blissfully ignorant of what Providence had already decreed before they were even born. They are also oblivious to the fact that even the game's logo was Gator orange and blue. It was Destiny.