Last* Word On Some Overcooked Stories

I have been gone all week, with the only sports channel available being ESPN Deportes ("deportes" apparently means "only soccer" in Spanish), and came home to find that really not a damned thing happened. But some of the sports world's favorite re-tread stories were apparently back in the news this week, and I didn't have my chance to add my rant to the cacophony of morons screaming about them...till now.

Alex Rodriguez is a cheater and lied about when he cheated. So you're telling me a guy that ballooned up like...well, like a guy on steroids, was using steroids? And he lied about it too? Did anyone believe that he had only used drugs on those random days when they happened to test him as he said? Did anyone really believe that he only used in Texas because the pressure was so great on him, but that the pressure of a larger contract on the largest stage (New York) made him go clean? Did anyone really believe anything he said on the issue after he'd already been caught lying and fessed up because he was caught? Guess what, the dude is a lair and cheater. Move on.

Brett Favre wants to unretire. I never thought I would say or write these words, but screw you, Brett Favre. First you blew your chance to ride off into the sunset with your legacy in tact and after a season for the ages. Then you whined like...well, like a professional athlete that you weren't getting what you wanted and shouldn't have to be held to the contract your signed. So then you got what you wanted, had some laughs (7 TD's in a game), but generally were a bad quarterback and had the chance to ride off into the sunset with most of your legacy in tact (since the Jets wear green, most people would have forgotten that you weren't a Packer forever). Now you allegedly want to come back and to play in Minnesota. This whole things makes me sad. (Thanks to Cory Hollenhorst for the above image. Google "Favre Vikings" images...some people are reall good at Photoshop.)

The U.S. Congress is taking time out of their busy pre-campaign campaign schedules to hear a bunch of jackasses argue about the validity of the BCS in college football. Let's not mince words here, the BCS is a money-making scheme that works really, really well. The bowls are too. And while many of us fans like to say we love the bowls and would be sad to see them go, we'd forget that within 2 years of a tournament-style championship. And they could still call the tourney games bowls anyway, so everyone gets his or her way regardless. If the NCAA wants to crown a champion for each of its sports instead of all-but-one, they need a tourney. If they want cash, they keep the BCS. And even that is stupid because let's face it, a football sweet 16 game would get far better ratings than the Holiday Bowl does, which would mean more TV ad dollars, which means more naming-rights dollars and more stadium ad dollars as well. I watched 3-4 bowl games beginning to end this year and I wouldn't miss a playoff game. As for the argument that a playoff would invalidate the regular season, I have two points: who cares how good your regular season is if your postseason is more a pageant than a sporting event, and if you lost 2 regular season games, your chances of making an 8-team playoff would nearly vanish. So how is that different that now?

The San Jose Sharks blew a great season and left the postseason with their potential unfulfilled. And the sun rose in the east this morning.

NBA teams had great playoff games with really exciting 4th quarter finishes. Unfortunately, they had to play the first three quarters first. Plus the Lakers and Cavs are sitting at home waiting for all of their toughest foes to beat one other to death to find out out who will be swept next.

The NFL and Comcast are still fighting about whether the billions of Americans who do not want the NFL Network should have to pay for it on their basic cable bill. Or if the millions of Americans who do want it for about 10-12 hours a year should. Or if the 10's of Americans who want it year round should get it on a premier sports-tier. Why was this so easy for MLB to make happen when supposedly no one in America likes baseball anymore but everyone likes football? And why is the NFL trying to say they're fighting for the right of the people to watch their games when they signed an exclusive deal with DirecTV to charge $11,000,000** a year for the season pass, rather than having such a deal on all TV providers.

**-approximate

The NFL Draft happened. Lots of guys I have never heard of or can't remember made a lot of money and I will never hear of, nor remember most of them. But the Giants got a dude that made the craziest catch in college football history, so that's cool. I will do a draft post-mortem at some point, which will allow me to make fun of people who made mock drafts, so that will be fun.

There are probably more but I am sick of thinking of stories that I am already sick of. This will be the last time I address them. Until next time.

If The Jets Beat The Patriots, And No One Was Watching...

Thursday night, the Jets got to get a real look at Brett Favre for the first time since he joined them. Sure, they've won six other games Favre threw six touchdowns in one of them and won another by 44. But this was one of the bigger games in regular season franchise history: on the road, tied for first, at New England, in the latter half of the season. And from what I've read, Farve was his usual spectacular self. Of course it wasn't on TV, so how would I know?

This was the second of the NFL network's eight televised games this season. Few people really noticed that they missed the Browns and Broncos last week, but this one hurt a little. You may remember from last year (when the debate got hot) and the year before that the NFL network is not carried on most cable companies so a huge majority of football fans cannot watch their programming.

The reason for the debate is that the NFL wants its network to be carried on basic cable like, for instance, ESPN. If placed there, they maximize their viewership and can charge boatloads more for advertising. However, the cable companies do not think that the channel is a viable choice for their basic packages since it is niche programming, it will fit better in their sports packages, and it is too expensive. The cable companies will have to pay the NFL network for the programming, so they will have to raise rates for their customers. Their argument is that rates should not raise for all basic cable customers, rather only the customers who want this channel. Clearly at some point, someone will notice that the way to solve this is a la carte pricing for cable. Until then, we are stuck.

Dish and DirecTV both bought into the NFL network and offer the channel on their basic services. But only around 20% of homes in the U.S. have satellite (and that number is a high estimate).

As a pretty big sports fan, I can say whole-heartedly that I do not want to be forced to pay extra for the NFL network and am thrilled that the cable companies haven't bowed to the NFL's pressure. So I missed last night's game. Bummer. But if I was paying for this network, that would be three-and-a-half hours of program I watched, followed by 164.5 hours till next week's game that I wouldn't watch. And next week is Cincy vs. Pittsburgh which I wouldn't watch. In fact, the only other game this season I might watch on NFL network is Arizona at Philly, but it is on Thanksgiving day, so I'd probably miss it anyway.

The NFL network folks like to say that for the price of a cup of coffee a week, you could get 24-hour NFL coverage. The problem is that makes 3.5 hours I want, and 8756.5 hours I don't this year. No thanks. Either put it into the sports package and let sports fan pay the bill or just put the games On Demand and I'll buy them individually (which is also where TV programming is going).

The funniest part of this debate is last season in Week 17: the Giants played the Pats with the undefeated regular season on the line, the Giants playing their starters in a "meaningless game," New York vs. Boston, etc. etc. There was so much of a stink raised around the country about that game only airing on 1-in-5ish TVs, that Congress stepped in and told the NFL network that they were being stupid and forced them to air the game on network TV as well.

So the moral of the story is that while most of us can't get this channel, if we really cared we would make it happen and still not have to pay for it.

Baseball Celebrates Interleague, And No One Notices

Major League Baseball's first interleague series blew by without really making any particularly interesting news. I think the honeymoon is over for Interleague and the fans. I am sure ticket sales were solid in most series (LA vs. LA, NY vs. NY for instance), but in general, did anyone really care?

When the Mets and Yankees used to play and ESPN would cover it, leading up to the game we were seemingly bombarded with commercials, animations during other games, etc. for weeks. I didn't see any ads for Sunday night's game besides their normal Sunday Night Baseball teasers.

When the Mets and Yankees used to play, the games carried all kinds of weight with them. The teams seemed to hate one another. Roger Clemens used to throw things at people all the time. It was big news!

Last night we went to a sports bar-ish restaurant and where there is one giant tv screen (that can be split into four different channels) with two large TVs on either side and then a few more big TVs scattered around the walls. The big screen was split up and the Mets-Yankees game was on one small portion of it. The other three were NASCAR, ESPN News, and the NFL network and the other two large TVs had ESPN News and the NASCAR.

That's right, the Steelers-Browns game from Week 10 got as much attention at a sports bar as the live Mets-Yankees game. This brought me to three conclusions:

1- Interleague is no longer any different for the casual fan than any other baseball game is. And for the devoted fan, is it really any different either? Was I more interested in this game than a Mets-Braves or Mets-Phillies game? Perhaps a bit, but it is just not as timeless and interesting as it once seemed.

2- The ratings of the 2000 World Series were some of the lowest for a World Series of all time. No one cared about New York playing New York despite that it was one of the more intrigue-filled Series in a long time. If that was the case, then the ratings were last night for a regular season game featuring two teams that were a combined 1-game under .500 must have been horrible.

3- The NFL Network is totally and completely wrong in their argument with the cable companies. NFL Network wants to be given a spot in the basic cable line-ups so they get wider distribution (thus they can sell commercials for much more money). Cable companies say it is a specialty-channel and won't get the wide-spread audience that basic cable channels typically get, so they want to add it to their sports packages (thus shrinking distribution and making commercials less valuable). I am a huge sports fan. I love the NFL. I would basically watch any team play any team on Sundays in the fall and winter. However, besides the eight live NFL games that the network carries, there is absolutely nothing that that channel airs that even I want to watch. They want NFL Network to go on basic cable, which would raise cable rates by the price of a cup of coffee (as the NFL network likes to say). If I don't think it is worth it to pay more for "24 hours per year of live NFL football and about 8,736 hours of filler," then do you think a non-sports/NFL fan would be willing to pay?

The Mets vs. Yankees and the NFL were not the only sporting events this weekend that no one cares about until they mean something.

-The NBA has finally gotten to the Conference Finals (once the Spurs finish off the Hornets tonight) so NBA games will be interesting even in the first quarter now. Isn't it funny that after all the BS of the last seven months, we ended up with the four teams that it was always going to be? This is further proof that the NBA season should be two months long, with only four teams from each Conference making the playoffs.

-The NHL has reached the Stanley Cup...well almost. Detroit roared out to a 3-0 lead but Dallas is now scaring the hell out of them. Dallas now plays at home in game six with a chance to tie it up. Note: when looking for NHL coverage on ESPN.com, even though they are in the most important two weeks of the season, the NHL is listed 10th behind women's basketball, NASCAR, racing (not sure what the different is there), college football (which will start in six months) and general college sports. Ouch.

- Big Brown won the Preakness and made NBC very, very happy because now someone will watch the Belmont in two weeks. No Triple Crown winner since 1978 and now horse racing (in perhaps its darkest hour) may Crown a champion. Never mind that Big Brown is widely considered one of the worst champs racing against easily the worst field in history.

Finally, can we all agree that baseball needs instant replay in the instances of home runs and foul balls? It is a good thing that the Yankees bullpen sucks as bad as it does or I would likely have strangled someone if that Delgado home run-blown call had come back to hurt the Mets.