September 20, 2006
GROB: How TV ruined sports
By JAMES GROB, Courier sports editor
I’m a gutless coward.
That’s what at least one Courier reader thinks, anyway. He left me an angry voice mail message earlier this week, and among other things — many of which aren’t printable in a daily newspaper – he let me know that I’m not only a coward, but a gutless one at that.
He’s only half right. I’m not gutless. I have a substantial gut — although I’m proud to say it’s not quite as substantial as it was a few months back. I’ve been watching my diet a little closer.
As for the coward part, he’s probably right about that. I’ll admit that there are times when I behave rather cowardly — it just depends on the situation. There are times for courage — times to just stand your ground — and times when you should run screaming. If the cowardly running and screaming thing keeps me alive and healthy, it just might be the best option.
Of course, the caller never left me his name or his number or any way for me to counter his claims in person. So what do you call a person who’s afraid of getting called back by a gutless coward?
The caller was angry, and he had good reason to be angry. He had spent part of Saturday afternoon staring at a television screen full of white fuzz instead of the fourth quarter of the Iowa vs. Iowa State game. It seems someone at the cable company messed things up or something, and several viewers in the Ottumwa area were cut off from watching the game. One of my sports writers alertly timed it, and told me the signal was out for 26 minutes during the crucial final quarter.
I don’t know why the caller thought this was my fault. I don’t work at the cable company, and have no power over them. When I call Mediacom as a customer — and I have many times for many reasons — I usually get a very friendly, courteous person who really doesn’t know how to help me very much. When I try to call them as a sports editor, I also usually get a very friendly, courteous person who can’t talk to me on the record very much.
And that’s that. Some human screwed things up somewhere Saturday, a bunch of TV viewers missed a good portion of the biggest sporting event in Iowa, another confused human got angry and anonymously spewed filthy words into my voice message box — and I still don’t know why.
And there’s nothing any of us can do about it.
I do think it would be a nice gesture on the part of Mediacom to offer some kind of small credit or refund to those customers who were impacted by their mistake Saturday. What’s 26 minutes of fourth quarter Iowa vs. ISU football coverage worth? Five bucks off your bill? Ten bucks? Free movie channels for a weekend or two?
Seems to me something like that would be good public relations. It might also keep the naughty words from mixed-up callers off my phone lines for a while.
Whether or not Mediacom decides to do something like that is their business, of course. The cable company wasn’t the only one that had trouble Saturday. At least one of the satellite dish companies had some problems as well. Apparently the first 15 minutes or so of the game were blacked out on the sets of thousands of dish customers. I’m told they got things straightened out eventually. I’ll bet someone called them gutless cowards. I hope so, anyway.
These problems are reflective of what is becoming a much bigger problem in television sports coverage.
There’s something wrong with the fact that Iowa’s home football opener against Montana was available to cable viewers in Winnipeg and Tallahassee, but not available to cable viewers right here in Ottumwa, Iowa. I suspect there will be more of this nonsense in the future — and I suspect that eventually fans will be asked to pay a price in order to watch their favorite college football team.
Baseball blackouts have made absolutely no sense at all this summer, either. As I write this Wednesday evening, the White Sox vs. Tigers game — scheduled to be on ESPN — is blacked out here. At various times over the last few months, the Royals, Cardinals, Twins, Brewers, Indians and even the Yankees have had games blacked off the television sets of ESPN viewers in southern Iowa. None of these games were being carried by any local stations.
Why would any of these teams be blacked out here?
I’ve called Mediacom about this, and they’ve told me it’s the fault of ESPN. I’ve called ESPN, and they’ve told me it’s the fault of my local cable company. I become an unwilling participant in a spirited game of Pass the Buck. I suspect that it will eventually be my buck that will have to be passed if I want to watch any baseball game.
Sunday, after the Bears vs. Lions NFL game ended, FOX picked up the end of the Vikings vs. Panthers game. This was nice, since it was a close and exciting game. I watched it for a couple of minutes, and then it went to overtime. The announcer then told me that, due to contract obligations, FOX could not televise the conclusion of the game.
What? Does this make sense to anyone?
Meanwhile, several NFL games this season — including games that feature the Chiefs, Packers, and Vikings — are going to be televised on the NFL Network, a channel that most cable companies do not carry, at least not around here. When I attempt to contact the NFL Network about this, they ask for my name and address and tell me that they can send my cable company a form letter on my behalf, urging them to carry the NFL Network.
Sounds like a shakedown to me.
The NFL is trying to force cable companies to pick up the NFL Network. If they don’t, we customers are going to miss some big games. If they do, we customers are going to have to pay higher cable rates, like it or not. The worst part is, the NFL is using customers in a scheme that will ultimately shaft those same customers, one way or another.
This is just the beginning, of course. Things are going to get worse. Billions of dollars are made from television sports coverage each year, but these folks can’t just leave that alone. They have to make an effort to milk a few billion more out of their sports coverage.
When and where will this greed end?
Stay tuned.