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FCC to kill sports blackout rule
- Thread starter mvcg66b3r
- Start date
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FredLeonard
Guest
While they are at it, get rid of the archaic rule that forces games onto terrestrial TV. All games should be on pay cable/satellite where people pay to watch them - and they don't screw up schedules for everybody else.
And this season we've lost the normal Thursday night schedule as well, with CBS.
But only for seven weeks.
Eventually, it's all a matter of time before you get your wish. Outside of the NFL, and whatever sporadic offerings the other leagues and college sports offers, live sports is pretty much already a cable/satellite-only entity anyway.
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FredLeonard
Guest
It wouldn't be so bad if the networks - CBS, especially - didn't cave into the sports leagues. It's fall, and every other Sunday night schedule is about to be screwed up yet again. Even if I pad recording times by an hour, sometimes shows still get cut off. Fox, at least, allows games to end (and Sunday night shows to start) at 7:30. Not CBS. They keep insisting games are over by 7pm - and they (almost) never are. OK, even when they are over at 7pm, CBS goes and finds the tail end of some other game nobody cares about, and often the tail-end of another game after that. CBS and the other networks to force actual sudden-death. 6:55 pm - the game is over, no matter what. Plus get rid of all those time-outs. Those last two minutes take a half-hour.
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Avid Listener
Guest
Capitalism works. So, the laws of supply and demand should apply here as they do anywhere else. The owners of the teams involved own the rights to broadcast their games or not. Those rights are their property. If the owners of teams in a league have contracts to allow the leagues to manage the rights to show games on television or not, then those legal contracts determine who has the authority to make the rights available for broadcast, and what broadcasting company gets to purchase those rights.
One of the bigger mistakes Congress made was to create a special anti-trust exemption for the NFL. No such exemption was ever needed. The NFL is not a monopoly, nor is MLB, the NHL, nor any other sports league or management company. Every such league or association is a competitor in the Professional Spectator Sports Industry, and each one has a monopoly on their particular brand name product. The various leagues and associations in the Professional Spectator Sports Industry competes with the other league and associations for the dollars of the ticket-buying, or show-watching, public. McDonalds has a monopoly on the Big Mac, Burger King has a monopoly on The Whopper, and so on for the rest of the fast food industry. Likewise, only the NFL markets pro football, but they compete with MLB, the NHL, Nascar, etc., to sell tickets.
So, if the NFL chooses to not give away its product for free on television for home games if there are still unsold seats in their stadium, that's their business. If the NFL chooses to not give away its product for free on broadcast television at all, that's their business. Congress has no Constitutional standing to get involved in Professional Spectator Sports, since its product is an entertainment event that takes place at a single location, and doesn't involved interstate commerce to the degree that it can be regulated as interstate commerce. So, the best thing the Federal Government can do at this point in time is to simply butt out and let American free enterprise do what it does.
"We" didn't lose the normal Thursday night schedule on CBS. It doesn't belong to "us". It is the property of CBS.
Bull. The networks own their programming, we don't. If you don't like how football works on television, watch something else. TV networks don't exist for you personal amusement. They exist to make profits for their shareholders. Want to change how CBS does its programming? Buy enough CBS stock to have a say in the shareholder's meetings. Otherwise, your opinion doesn't matter even a little bit.
One of the bigger mistakes Congress made was to create a special anti-trust exemption for the NFL. No such exemption was ever needed. The NFL is not a monopoly, nor is MLB, the NHL, nor any other sports league or management company. Every such league or association is a competitor in the Professional Spectator Sports Industry, and each one has a monopoly on their particular brand name product. The various leagues and associations in the Professional Spectator Sports Industry competes with the other league and associations for the dollars of the ticket-buying, or show-watching, public. McDonalds has a monopoly on the Big Mac, Burger King has a monopoly on The Whopper, and so on for the rest of the fast food industry. Likewise, only the NFL markets pro football, but they compete with MLB, the NHL, Nascar, etc., to sell tickets.
So, if the NFL chooses to not give away its product for free on television for home games if there are still unsold seats in their stadium, that's their business. If the NFL chooses to not give away its product for free on broadcast television at all, that's their business. Congress has no Constitutional standing to get involved in Professional Spectator Sports, since its product is an entertainment event that takes place at a single location, and doesn't involved interstate commerce to the degree that it can be regulated as interstate commerce. So, the best thing the Federal Government can do at this point in time is to simply butt out and let American free enterprise do what it does.
"We" didn't lose the normal Thursday night schedule on CBS. It doesn't belong to "us". It is the property of CBS.
Bull. The networks own their programming, we don't. If you don't like how football works on television, watch something else. TV networks don't exist for you personal amusement. They exist to make profits for their shareholders. Want to change how CBS does its programming? Buy enough CBS stock to have a say in the shareholder's meetings. Otherwise, your opinion doesn't matter even a little bit.
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FredLeonard
Guest
Rabid Listener: The One Percenters are not your friends. When it meets the needs of their avarice, they will just as happily screw you over as anybody else. There are always more suckers whom they can con and manipulate. People like you are destroying this country. Just as people like you gave power to Hitler. Capitalism does not work for your benefit - or mine.
You will notice that GRC has elected today to wear a striped referee's shirt rather than his usual barnyard attire, and now let me blow my shrill little whistle, and throw a red flag over this quote.
In the metro area where you and I live we are currently going through all this hoopla and the "Yellow Iron" operated by construction companies to move dirt have started bellowing and puffing a lot of black diesel-powered black smoke. Both our major league football team and our major league baseball steam are constructing new stadiums. And in both cases, it was not a "done deal" until the requisite amount of tax-payer dollars were included in both schemes.
Yes, just like Mother, Flag and Apple Pie, taxpayer participation in the funding of major sports has become a tradition. In the language used by real estate lawyers, that process "has put a cloud on the deed, the ownership title, of what you insist is a purely capitalistic process of selling access to the broadcast rights of these sports activities.
When the deep-pocket entrepreneurial class gets their hand out of the public till, then maybe we can have a rational discussion about who owns the broadcast of these events.
Godwin's Law is proven again: As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1.
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Avid Listener
Guest
I left one city where the LOCAL government decided to use public money to build not one, but two sports palaces so that the local NFL and MLB teams could both have shiny new stadiums. And now I'm in another state where a similar LOCAL government is pulling a similar stunt. I am not now, nor will I ever be an advocate of LOCAL government redistributing wealth to support wealthy professional spectator sports team owners.
But (that's what they call a big but), those controversies are about LOCAL governments. Perhaps the State government might also get involved. In our Constitutional Republic, there are different levels of government. Just because the state and local governments are doing damn-fool stupid things does not mean that the central FEDERAL government (ie. Congress) has any legal, constitutional position to butt its nose into the issue.
It's not a Federal issue. Period.
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FredLeonard
Guest
Pro-sports leagues operate across state lines. Therefore, they are "inter-state commerce." Therefore, the federal government has constitutional authority to regulate them. All broadcasting is also regulated by the federal government. Therefore, the federal government has authority to regulate any aspect of sports broadcasting. Whether it should is another question. But generations of legislation and court decisions clearly show that it can.
A week from tomorrow, the Scots vote on secession. A right those in "the land of the free" have been denied. When the right of secession was denied by military force, the nature and scope of federal authority changed. Period. Notice that introductory US History courses typically cover two semesters. The courses and their texts carry titles like: US History Prior to 1865. The Federal Union. US History After 1865. The Nation-state.
A week from tomorrow, the Scots vote on secession. A right those in "the land of the free" have been denied. When the right of secession was denied by military force, the nature and scope of federal authority changed. Period. Notice that introductory US History courses typically cover two semesters. The courses and their texts carry titles like: US History Prior to 1865. The Federal Union. US History After 1865. The Nation-state.
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Avid Listener
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Name a single professional sports stadium that straddles a state line. Just one. When a football game, a baseball game, a NASCAR race, or any other professional spectator sporting event takes place, it takes place in a venue located entirely within the confines of one single state. True, American citizens are permitted to work in any state, and to cross state lines to work, but simply crossing a state line in order to get to the location of one's work is not "interstate commerce".
As for the FCC, despite the fact that the FCC has a history of jumping beyond what it is rightly and properly supposed to do, the only regulations that the FCC is supposed to be enforcing, from the standpoint of the Constitution, are technical matters to ensure that different broadcasters' signals don't interfere with each other. Nothing in the FCC's charter gives it the authority to dictate to broadcasters and/or the owners of the rights to public entertainment events who can and cannot be permitted to watch those events.
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FredLeonard
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The NFL operates across state lines. So do the other leagues and the NCAA. Sounds like you don't think McDonald's is engaged in interstate commerce because individual restaurants don't cross state lines.
On top of that, teams sell tickets across state lines, make broadcast contracts across state lines, buy supplies across state lines, hire people across state lines, travel to play across state lines and bring in opponents from across state lines.
The basic flaw in "capitalism" is it is only concerned with those who provide the capital. Not with employees or customers, without whom no profits are possible. And certainly not with the environment and other social costs they incur. Apparently your only concern is helping rich people become even richer - even against your own self-interest.
The federal government should take control of big time sports and have commissioners in each sport appointed - just like the FCC, the Fed, the SEC, the FDA...
PS: Politicians generally avoid using local tax payer dollars to build stadia. Instead the impose taxes on hotel rooms, car rentals, airport usage - taxes paid by people from out of town. Another example of interstate commerce.
On top of that, teams sell tickets across state lines, make broadcast contracts across state lines, buy supplies across state lines, hire people across state lines, travel to play across state lines and bring in opponents from across state lines.
The basic flaw in "capitalism" is it is only concerned with those who provide the capital. Not with employees or customers, without whom no profits are possible. And certainly not with the environment and other social costs they incur. Apparently your only concern is helping rich people become even richer - even against your own self-interest.
The federal government should take control of big time sports and have commissioners in each sport appointed - just like the FCC, the Fed, the SEC, the FDA...
PS: Politicians generally avoid using local tax payer dollars to build stadia. Instead the impose taxes on hotel rooms, car rentals, airport usage - taxes paid by people from out of town. Another example of interstate commerce.
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Avid Listener
Guest
McDonalds, and other businesses, buy raw ingredients that are shipped across state lines. Professional sports teams do not PURCHASE players. They are not chattel slaves. Professional sports teams do not ship finished goods across state lines. The fact that they might buy uniforms or other equipment from another state doesn't make them part of "interstate commerce", except in the minds of those who are so blindly determined that the central Federal government will manage every single thing that happens in the entire nation. To such anti-Constitutionalists, anything and everything is stretched to fit the loosest, most vague interpretation of what is and isn't "interstate commerce".
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FredLeonard
Guest
Not chattel slaves? Pretty close to it, even under current contracts.
"Finished goods" is not the standard for interstate commerce. Even so, the product they sell is tickets and they sell those across state lines.
And they do ship players across state lines.
The courts have also held that "the business" is the league; not the team. Just as McDonald's is a national and international business.
"Finished goods" is not the standard for interstate commerce. Even so, the product they sell is tickets and they sell those across state lines.
And they do ship players across state lines.
The courts have also held that "the business" is the league; not the team. Just as McDonald's is a national and international business.
All remotely popular sports and other live-event broadcasts should be on broadcast TV where people don't have to pay to watch them, because "everybody else's" schedules are, in this day and age, just filler between live events insofar as they could just as easily premiere online first. Monday Night Football, the BCS/CFP, the Final Four, and local team sports are all, virtually by themselves, keeping people tied to their cable connection.
Seriously, have you seen the sorts of ratings NFL games get?!? They positively dwarf the numbers your beloved CBS schedule gets, even when that schedule isn't competing with Sunday Night Football. The entire concept of linear television is based around the notion of having to watch this show at this specific time, and DVRs are just one of many things that break that, that represent a rejection of it. CBS doesn't care about you the DVR viewer who will just fast-forward through the ads that pay their bills anyway; they want to force you, and more importantly Nielsen households, to watch at least part of every single show in their Sunday primetime lineup to catch the one you actually want to watch. The only reason this is even an issue is because the online video market isn't mature enough to compete with broadcast or cable for the most popular non-live shows.
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FredLeonard
Guest
Why are you so concerned about how much money people who can buy and sell you - and care nothing about you - are making? Keep justifying and enabling corporate avarice until it's your job that gets lost, or your car that won't stop. The NFL uses, chews up and spits out dumb jocks leaving them to go through life with chronic pain and the after affects of concussions. But you don't care about that because some rich guys are making money. Really nice. And now it comes out the NFL condones spousal abuse - until there's a PR problem.
US football is an overly brutal corruption of rugby which demonstrates what a sick country this is. It should be banned completely, like dog fighting - oh right, some of the over-paid NFL Neanderthals do that, too.
They don't care about DVR users? Well, now they do. Nielsen counts three day and seven day viewing. Networks charge for them. Spend less time watching sports and keep up with your reading.
And in this era of hundreds of channels, channels should have formats - like radio has for the past 60 years. Sports belong on sports channels. Just don't make me pay $5 a month for it.
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FredLeonard
Guest
Apparently, Les Moonves is unable to tell time. CBS is running an SEC football game scheduled to end at 7pm. At 7pm, they were just starting the first half (local news was scheduled at 7pm). At 7:30, five minutes left in the third quarter. It's one thing to have games run over by a few minutes but by an hour and a half to two hours???
Most Sundays when CBS has a late afternoon game, they still schedule 60 Minutes to start at 7pm - and it almost never happens. Much of the time, the game is not even over by 7:30pm.
The FCC should require networks to keep their schedule - no matter what. If they won't put games on cable where they belong, then force the leagues to end games at the designated time. These greedy team owners have gotten their way far too often. Most of them belong in jail any way.
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At 8pm: 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter and they aren't even bothering to say anything about what will happen to the prime time schedule. SEC football? The Dogs and the Cocks? Apparently CBS is not the Confederate Broadcasting System.
Most Sundays when CBS has a late afternoon game, they still schedule 60 Minutes to start at 7pm - and it almost never happens. Much of the time, the game is not even over by 7:30pm.
The FCC should require networks to keep their schedule - no matter what. If they won't put games on cable where they belong, then force the leagues to end games at the designated time. These greedy team owners have gotten their way far too often. Most of them belong in jail any way.
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At 8pm: 13 minutes left in the fourth quarter and they aren't even bothering to say anything about what will happen to the prime time schedule. SEC football? The Dogs and the Cocks? Apparently CBS is not the Confederate Broadcasting System.
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Jeez.....sour attitude much? These are live events and subject to various ending times. Obviously you don't appreciate football (or any live sports?) but there is no reason that live events must live on cable - other than your distaste of course.
Of course the networks could pad the game with an hour to be used just in case (it used to be called 'TBD' on the schedules) in which case you would sit on your couch watching a rehash of the local news, an infomercial or Aunt Tilly's interview with the mayor. Your choice.
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