NFL perilously paddles up ‘stream’
WHAT happens after our sports leagues and partner TV networks finish reinventing the flat tire?
Last week came word that a confederation including Disney/ESPN, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery had formed to launch a post-cable/cable-like sports events streaming service.
In other words, those at the wheel will increase their bet that sports fans are to be taken for granted as they have no limits to how they spend their money in order to watch games.
Last month what the NFL Treasurer Goodell framed as a triumph — a “record breaking” mass approval of playoff football seen almost exclusively on NBC’s Peacock streaming operation — became a self-serving matter of application.
Consider that there was no previous big-attraction sports event streaming record to break. NBC boasted that 23 million watched the attractive Saturday night Dolphins-Chiefs playoff game, most of them on Peacock. Yet according to NBC, the next day’s lesser attraction RamsLions on NBC drew 38 million viewers.
So on a nationally cold, stay-in Saturday night, the NFL sacrificed at least 15 million viewers — and very likely many more — by hiding the game behind a paywall, after every NBC TV properties shamelessly spent the week banging the Peacock drums as if this be a greater event than the first lunar landing.
Now what did those who normally would’ve watched, but chose not to, take away from that game?
Did they say to themselves, “Damn! I’ll never do that again! From now on I’ll pay the freight”?
Or did they say to themselves, “Hey, that wasn’t so bad. I’m glad I wasn’t party to that smug greed”?
And having taught at least 15 million to live without watching an NFL playoff game between high-powered offensive teams, why would multiple networks plan to join as one to go even deeper into fans’ pockets to view lesser games?
Despite the claims of Emperor Nero — aka Roger Goodell — no good business intentionally does dirt to its most devoted customers. The expressed idea that streaming will attract new and younger audiences, especially those who don’t bite or can no longer afford to take leagues’ bait to lose their money betting on games, makes for wishful but highly impractical business.
➤ Given that Fox badguess artist Colin Cowherd is seldom correct or just fabricates facts, his appearance in promos selling the new United Football League chirping, “Spring football is here to stay!” is an RIP for the UFL.