Football

2 years of the Sports TV wars, and the coming Year of Fox

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Year Three of the sports TV wars will be when they start to kick off in earnest with the pending launch of Fox Sports 1, and not only is Fox making a huge push for the launch, they’re not giving up their regional sports network hegemony without a fight. Over the past month and a half, Fox has bought portions of the YES network and SportsTime Ohio, the RSN run by the Cleveland Indians.

It wasn’t that long ago that we were talking about Fox no longer having any presence whatsoever in any market larger than Dallas should Time Warner Cable win the rights to the Dodgers (though TWC SportsNet’s chances are still very much alive at the moment), about the launch of Fox Sports 1 representing the final abandonment of the FSN concept and that Fox would cannibalize FSN’s national programming to fill time on its new national networks. Now Fox has an owned-and-operated presence in the top two media markets, and if they win Dodgers rights they’ll be very hard to kick out of either one.

What might be sustaining FSN’s continued interest in acquiring existing RSNs, including a rumored bid for the MASN network co-owned by the Orioles and Nationals? It may be a clause in Fox’s new baseball contract that only recently came to light: apparently, Fox can fill up its lineup of games on FS1 by cannibalizing them from RSNs it owns – a clause that might be a remnant of the early days of the national FSN experiment when FSN would air a “national” game every Thursday. Owning a piece of YES allows Fox to fill up FS1’s lineup of games with far more Yankees games than, say, Mets games.

This suggests Fox might also be thinking about making a run at NESN and its associated Red Sox rights, and why Dodgers rights will be far more valuable, at least to Fox, than has already been suggested. As much as basketball can move the needle, baseball’s lack of a salary cap and some quirks in its revenue sharing model have made the local sports TV wars especially competitive regarding, and lucrative for, baseball teams, long higher-rated as a whole than basketball games anyway (notwithstanding national interest). If Fox has this added motivation driving them to acquire baseball rights specifically, don’t be surprised to see the values climb into the stratosphere, especially in competitive markets. In particular, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Fox absolutely break the bank on the St. Louis Cardinals, Atlanta Braves, and Detroit Tigers in their next contracts, even without obvious competition; even the Florida teams could rake in the dough if Fox fears Comcast or Bright House coming calling.

Most speculation on national networks beyond Fox Sports 1 has settled on Fuel becoming Fox Sports 2, with Fox Soccer remaining as is, which has never made much sense to me given Fuel’s smaller reach and Fox Soccer’s loss of its best, most consistent programming. But Fox may have in mind transitioning Fox Soccer out of the sports market entirely. The LA Times reported earlier this week that Fox is considering relaunching Fox Soccer into a general entertainment network, effectively an “FX2”. That seems a substantially riskier move than turning it into Fox Sports 2; if your company runs multiple entertainment networks, it’s usually critical to make sure they have their own identity so as not to cannibalize one another (for example, TBS being all about comedy while TNT stresses its dramas), especially when the channel is starting with relatively little distribution – Fox Soccer is in about 50 million homes, better than a lot of startups but not enough to launch a big-time network and vulnerable to cable company defections, especially when many cable operators currently put it on sports tiers. To explicitly market it as a “lesser” channel to FX smacks of borderline suicide, and something no general entertainment channel I know of does.

If Fox is going to do this, I would suggest either marketing it as a comedy network (FX is primarily known for dramas though it does have more than a few comedies), marketing it towards women, or create a kids network powered by the old Fox Kids block that entertained so many kids during the 90s (though the rights to many of those cartoons may be owned by other entities). Fox could also market to niche genres, like with NBC Universal’s Cloo and Chiller channels, or pick up the geek crowd disenchanted with the state of SyFy and G4. An outside-the-box possibility could be to convert Fox Soccer into an international version of the Fox News Channel; Fox Soccer already occasionally airs the general “Sky News” from Britain. Ultimately, however, I wouldn’t be surprised if Fox decided that turning Fox Soccer away from sports risked losing too much existing distribution for too little gain to be viable and the only feasible option would be to convert it, not Fuel, into Fox Sports 2, getting that network off the ground that way. (I continue to maintain that Fuel doesn’t feel like a sports channel in the same way as the others to me; it may be about “extreme” sports beyond its UFC coverage, but, well, those are marginally “sports” at best.)

In any case, if Fox only creates two networks that means the chances are borderline at best that it shuts down Fox College Sports entirely, but recent events have still suggested it should rethink what role FSN takes when acquiring college rights – people in the Bay Area have been scrambling to watch Cal and Stanford basketball games FSN holds the rights to since the area’s Comcast SportsNet networks aren’t showing FSN programming.

I haven’t spoken about conference realignment in a while (partly because the whole thing has just gotten too depressing for me), but Fox is also the reported leader in the clubhouse for the rights to the so-called “Catholic 7”, the non-football-playing members of the Big East who finally figured out that the depleted remnants of the football half of the conference weren’t going to command a contract anywhere near as good as what commissioner Mike Aresco was trying to make them believe, especially with the Big East losing its privileged BCS status. (Once Tulane became a viable Big East member, it became clear that this was essentially Conference USA 2.0, with only UConn being a true “Big East” school – and they, not Louisville, probably should have been the school the ACC called when Maryland left for the Big Ten.) Fox has been reported to be offering something in the neighborhood of $300 million, an astonishing number for a non-football conference and hopefully a wake-up call for all the other actors in conference realignment that football itself is not what powers the money machine, but sports people want to watch.

Fox is a rather odd choice to go after the Catholic 7, but unless its existing Big 12 and Pac-12 contracts have limited at best basketball inventory for FS1 their only other option to truly establish their basketball bona fides is the Big Ten contract in a few years, which admittedly I’d be shocked if they don’t snag. But until purchasing YES Fox had very little RSN presence in the Catholic 7 territory; RSNs in Michigan, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Ohio, but Marquette might be the only school in any of those states. YES puts them in St. John’s backyard, and the Catholic 7 might be going after the likes of Butler, Dayton, Xavier, and Saint Louis (and Virginia Commonwealth, which might bring FS South/SportSouth into play as well), so they have that going for them.

But considering how much the Big East and ESPN have meant to each other, and the fact that the Catholic 7, to me, are the true inheritors of the Big East’s legacy regardless of whether they actually win the name (a basketball conference with the likes of Memphis, Temple, Cincinnati, and UConn may be a very good mid-major, but still a mid-major), I cannot believe that ESPN would let them blithely walk away to Fox so easily. I have to imagine ESPN will make a big run for at least a piece of the Catholic 7, probably sublicensing some games to CBS – the first real competition between ESPN and Fox since the World Cup rights came up. (Pre-split, NBC was considered a favorite to snag Big East rights and a major reason Aresco kept hyping how much money the conference would make from the sports TV wars – but at this point, which half they go after depends on whether NBC wants to keep piling up mid-majors in football or establish their basketball bona fides. Considering the Mountain West was literally the only FBS conference at their disposal last season, I would lean towards the latter at this point; the only major football conference they have a shot at for several years at this point is the Big Ten, and that shot is very remote.)

Last year saw Fox establish the foundation for Fox Sports 1 with its baseball and NASCAR contracts, while NBCSN settled into a third-place groove (and potentially started to establish a niche for themselves) by acquiring the Premier League, driving the final nail into Fox Soccer’s coffin. While this year will see the fight for the Catholic 7 and the awarding of the other half of the NASCAR package, and the NBA rights might come up for negotiation as well, for the most part the stage for the sports TV wars will move away from acquiring rights and towards what the contenders, especially Fox, do with them. FS1 is likely coming in August, and that is when the Wars will start in earnest.

Predictions for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2013

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The Pro Football Hall of Fame’s selections are performed by a panel of 44 leading NFL media members including representatives of all 32 NFL teams, a representative of the Pro Football Writers of America, and 11 at-large writers.

The panel has selected a list of 15 finalists from the modern era, defined as playing all or part of their careers within the last 25 years. A player must have spent 5 years out of the league before they can be considered for induction into the Hall of Fame. Players that last played in the 2007 season will be eligible for induction in 2013.

During Super Bowl Weekend, the panel will meet and narrow down the list of modern-era finalists down to five. Those five will be considered alongside two senior candidates, selected by a nine-member subpanel of the larger panel last August, for a total of seven. From this list, at least four and no more than seven people will be selected for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

My prediction for the Pro Football Hall of Fame Class of 2013 is:

Andre Reed
Jonathan Ogden
Michael Strahan
Aeneas Williams
Larry Allen
Curley Culp
Dave Robinson

Hall of Fame Game: Rams v. Giants

A (very) belated post-apocalyptic blog-day.

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So, how’d that Mayan apocalypse go, eh?

Funny story: The idea that the Mayan calendar “ended” last week was always wrong to begin with. I always felt that Y2K was an apt comparison for the whole “Mayan apocalypse” hysteria, since last week actually marked the end of the previous and the start of a new b’ak’tun, a period of about 394 years. The Mayans themselves don’t seem to have ever believed the world was going to end in 2012, referring to future events after that date, but they did have a creation myth that said that the previous world ended at the start of a 14th b’ak’tun, the same one that started a week ago. That previous world was scrapped as a failed experiment that never had humans placed in it, so people who believed the world was going to end last week were a) implicitly believing in the Mayan gods and b) implying this world was a failure despite c) the presence of humans (which should be a mark of success) in it.

Think about that for a second.

Another funny story: The last change in b’ak’tun was in 1618, just a few years after the Catholic Church forbade the teaching of the Copernican heliocentric model of the cosmos, which caused Galileo to stay away from the matter for the seven or so years following. Before that, 1224 was just the year before the Magna Carta became law. 830 saw the foundation of the House of Wisdom, which played a key role in preserving many Greek texts by translating them into Arabic, and roughly corresponds with the decline of the Mayans themselves, or at least their “classic” period; 435 is a couple centuries too late for their rise, but it is smack-dab in the middle of another, more well-known decline, that of the Roman empire, and just five years after the death of St. Augustine (and only nine after the completion of his City of God).

The year 41, less than a decade after the crucifixion of Jesus, saw the formation of the first Christian communities and Jews being given the freedom to worship following Caligula’s death. Alexander the Great was two years old in 354 BC, and it’s possible some of Plato’s later dialogues were being written around that time; as such, the entire b’ak’tun from 748 BC (four years after the traditional founding of Rome, and possibly the rough time Homer lived and Zoroastrianism, perhaps the first monotheistic religion, was founded) to 354 BC corresponds fairly well with the so-called “Axial Age”.

It’s probably engaging in the same sort of over-reading believers in a Mayan apocalypse do to actually claim any sort of correlation between the Mayan calendar and these developments, and even if so it’s hard to figure out what it means given the disparate nature of the milestones involved. It’s worth noting, though, that the last three milestones can be correlated with, respectively, the birth of modern science, the birth of modern notions of freedom and equality, and the birth of the modern intellectual tradition. Now consider that the exact date the Mayans placed the founding of our world at was 3114 BC. This is only 12 years before the start of the Hindu tradition’s Kali Yuga, and right in the middle of the period between the creation of Adam and the Flood in the Bible, suggesting a cross-cultural placing of importance on that time period, and both can be correlated with the unification of Egypt, the start of construction on Stonehenge, and the rise of the Minoans, as well as the earliest writing systems, which some scholars consider the start of “history” itself. It is, in short, the period when what we call “civilization” begins.

Given that history, what sort of period might we be entering now?

It’s possible, as I tweeted a while back, that this is essentially the point when global warming becomes unstoppable and inevitably plunges us back to the Stone Age if not worse. Personally, I prefer to look more optimistically at it, that this is the herald of a change that will make all the changes in human history since the agricultural revolution look like child’s play. Call me conceited, but as a philosopher, I always felt that at this point, I would introduce my own nominee for this change, by starting to increase humanity’s awareness of its own nature. As such, much of the entire history of Da Blog up to this point has been preparation for something to happen on December 21st. I initially planned to release the first of several treatises outlining my philosophy on that date. Later I planned to start my new webcomic then, and even felt, after failing to do much work on that comic over the summer, that I could use one of my classes as an impetus to work on it. When even that failed, leading to me flunking two classes when I hadn’t failed one in over a year, I was all set to settle for writing a rant on America’s reaction to the Newtown shootings and how completely wrong it was in every way.

The day came and went, and what did I do? Bupkis.

You might say I’m going through a personal apocalypse right now. I allowed my e-mail box to completely fill so I could focus with laser intensity on the comic, which of course, didn’t work. Then I planned to write an apology to my teacher, but haven’t been able to work myself up to do it, which also means I haven’t even registered for the new quarter; I’ve been thoroughly depressed throughout the winter break, especially after not doing anything for the 21st, and have wasted most of it on semi-random pursuits. I’m still five classes away from graduation, but that includes probably the two hardest, and I don’t know what’s motivating me to complete them anymore; I seriously considered taking winter quarter off entirely. Flunking two classes means that, for the next three months at least, Mom will cut me off from home Internet access for the entire quarter, reverting me to the state Da Blog was trapped in for much of its history.

Such is a fitting close to Year Six on Da Blog, a year which saw my attempt to recover my early posting frequency with the return of The Streak and a brief return to semi-regular webcomic reviews, yet the former took a far lamer form than it ever had before, with me repeatedly having to finesse and fudge my way to maintaining the streak to a significant extent (often with posts explicitly existing just to continue the streak), and most days posting less than an hour before midnight, leaving me wondering if something was wrong with me compared to the earlier streak, despite the Random Internet Discovery helping sustain the previous streak. Would I have been more able to pull off my goals just a few short years ago; has something damaged my decision-making ability beyond its already questionable levels? That may be unanswerable, and I don’t know whether I want to find it out. As if that wasn’t enough, I finally launched the long-awaited forum, which I saw as the birth of a community that would do much to boost Da Blog’s popularity, yet I might shutter it before it hits its one-year anniversary because it’s gotten to the point I simply assume any new thread was started by a spammer.

A year ago, I felt Da Blog was on its way up. Now, I feel like my future and that of Da Blog has never been cloudier. I still feel the need to do something with my ideas on human nature, if only because I fear the only people who have the clearest vision on human nature lack either the work ethic to share it with the world or the scruples to use it to benefit anyone other than themselves, and I still believe enough in my webcomic idea to do something with it, but it really does feel enough like work that I don’t know how willing or even able I am to do it. There’s something unreal about most of my plans, like they’re all fantasies of mine that I rationalize my way into relying on and which are all disconnected from one another, and they certainly don’t seem to be connected with an actual experience of doing them; I rarely have a clear, realistic path to a concrete goal. I’ve seen myself as a philosopher for years, yet I’ve always found it far easier to think about my philosophy than to actually put it down on virtual paper, and so long as it feels like a job I don’t know if it’s what I’m meant to do after all.

Perhaps my future is in numerical analysis of sports – the SNF Flex Schedule Watch has long been the most consistently popular aspect of the site, and I spent much of my post-failure funk working on several different mathematical formulae with different applications for sports. That’s certainly something I wouldn’t have thought even a month ago when I was thinking of shutting down the College Football Rankings and Flex Schedule Watch after next season. Or maybe not; I knew going in that the FF50 project was going to gobble up a massive amount of time at the worst possible time, but by the end I was finding it so tedious that I doubt I’m going to do much of anything on that front next year. This despite the fact I took 11 of my 42 teams to the championship game – something like double the rate I expected – and won all 11 (after losing my one championship game last year and despite screwing up my ESPN lineups last week knowing ESPN has two-week playoff rounds so I could make it up in Week 17), so let me take a moment to acknowledge my championship fantasy teams: Fox 2, Fox 8, ESPN 3, Fox 3, NFL 6, Split Backs, ESPN 8, Fox 1, ESPN 6, NFL 3, and ESPN 10. (Yeah, Fox leagues don’t seem to attract the strongest players…)

Perhaps that might be the inevitable fate of all my projects, for me to take them up, work on them obsessively for a time at the expense of my other obligations, and then abandon them as they become work and get too tedious. That may have already happened to those formulae I was working on, and it certainly would be consistent with some things I’ve read about Asperger’s Syndrome (including, of all things, an argument that Order of the Stick‘s Eugene Greenhilt has the same thing). Perhaps this site is always doomed to be a holding place for whatever project I take up for some period of time and eventually abandon, my own personal mezzacotta. If so, it doesn’t bode well for its ability to sustain itself, or my dreams of, whatever it is I end up doing in life, being one of the all-time greats at it.

Thanks in large part to The Streak, I’ve written 262 posts since my last Blog-Day post, which is in no way close to a record, as hard as that may be to believe when I couldn’t even hit 100 a couple years ago. I doubt I’ll fall short of 100 again. But I also doubt I’ll ever approach these heights again either. Here’s to Year Seven, a year I can’t even begin to predict.

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 15

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NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
  • In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 17 (December 30):

AFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS (6-8)
EAST
49-5		 59-5
8-6
EAST
310-4		 68-6
CLINCHED
WEST
211-3		 7-7
CLINCHED
SOUTH
112-2
CLINCHED
NFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS (6-7)
EAST
48-6		 59-5
2 teams at 8-6
NORTH
310-4		 68-6
2 teams at 8-6
WEST
210-3-1		 8-6
9-5 8-6
SOUTH
112-2		 8-6
CLINCHED 6-7-1
  • Tentative game: None (NBC will show game with guaranteed playoff implications).
  • Possible games: Ravens-Bengals, Packers-Vikings, Cowboys-Redskins, Eagles-Giants.
  • Cowboys-Redskins will be picked if: The Giants lose OR the Cowboys win. Both teams split the season series with the Giants, but the Giants can’t finish with a division record better than 3-3, while the Cowboys-Redskins winner will pick up at least their fourth division win. The Redskins won the first game against the Cowboys and so would sweep them with a win, so even with a Cowboys win this week a loss to the Redskins would eliminate them from the division. As this is the most TV-friendly option, it seems very likely, with the caveat that the loser could still get a wild card spot, and even if this scenario doesn’t play out…
  • Eagles-Giants will be picked if: The Giants win AND the Cowboys and Redskins lose, which would put this scenario (scroll to the bottom) into play. As would…
  • Packers-Vikings could theoretically be picked if: The Vikings win AND the NFC East teams all lose, as the Vikings would lose a tiebreaker to any of them but swept the Bears. But if that were to happen, the Vikings win by itself means I can’t see a scenario where the Cowboys-Redskins loser gets a playoff spot, wiping out Packers-Vikings’ one potential saving grace.
  • Ravens-Bengals will be picked if: The Ravens lose AND the Bengals beat the Steelers AND the Giants and Redskins win AND the Cowboys lose. Even then, the Ravens already have a playoff spot and the Bengals-Steelers result would assure the Bengals of one too; I haven’t researched that infernal common-games tiebreaker between the Colts and Bengals, but it’s very possible this game would merely determine home-field advantage for a rematch the following week, whether as the 3-6 or 4-5 game (if New England loses out, a Ravens win in this game gives them the 3 since they beat the Pats).

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 14

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Note: This week’s post does not include the results of the Thursday night game.

NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
  • In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 16 (December 23):

  • Selected game: San Francisco @ Seattle.

Week 17 (December 30):

AFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS (5-8)
NORTH
49-4		 59-4
2 teams at 7-6
WEST
310-3		 67-6
CLINCHED
EAST
210-3		 7-6
CLINCHED 6-7
SOUTH
111-2
9-4
NFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS (6-7)
EAST
48-5		 58-5
2 teams at 7-6
NORTH
39-4		 68-5
8-5
WEST
29-3-1		 7-6
8-5 7-6
SOUTH
111-2		 7-6
CLINCHED 6-6-1
  • Tentative game: None (NBC will show game with guaranteed playoff implications).
  • Possible games: Jets-Bills, Ravens-Bengals, Bears-Lions, Packers-Vikings, Bucs-Falcons, Texans-Colts, Dolphins-Patriots, Cowboys-Redskins, Steelers-Browns, Seahawks-Rams.
  • Because of how many games this week have playoff implications, I will not give any speculation or scenarios for what games might be picked until next week.

Last-Minute Remarks on SNF Week 16 Picks

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Week 16 (December 23):

  • Tentative game: San Diego @ NY Jets
  • Despite both San Diego and the Jets winning, and the Bengals and Jets losing, Tim Tebow did not play against the Jags today, so there are no signs he will be starting going forward, which is the only scenario under which the tentative would be kept.
  • Final prediction: San Francisco 49ers @ Seattle Seahawks.

Sunday Night Football Flex Scheduling Watch: Week 13

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NBC’s Sunday Night Football package gives it flexible scheduling. For the last seven weeks of the season, the games are determined on 12-day notice, 6-day notice for Week 17.

The first year, no game was listed in the Sunday Night slot, only a notation that one game could move there. Now, NBC lists the game it “tentatively” schedules for each night. However, the NFL is in charge of moving games to prime time.

Here are the rules from the NFL web site (note that this was written with the 2007 season in mind, hence why it still says late games start at 4:15 ET instead of 4:25):

  • Begins Sunday of Week 11
  • In effect during Weeks 11-17
  • Only Sunday afternoon games are subject to being moved into the Sunday night window.
  • The game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night during flex weeks will be listed at 8:15 p.m. ET.
  • The majority of games on Sundays will be listed at 1:00 p.m. ET during flex weeks except for games played in Pacific or Mountain Time zones which will be listed at 4:05 or 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • No impact on Thursday, Saturday or Monday night games.
  • The NFL will decide (after consultation with CBS, FOX, NBC) and announce as early as possible the game being played at 8:15 p.m. ET. The announcement will come no later than 12 days prior to the game. The NFL may also announce games moving to 4:05 p.m. ET and 4:15 p.m. ET.
  • Week 17 start time changes could be decided on 6 days notice to ensure a game with playoff implications.
  • The NBC Sunday night time slot in “flex” weeks will list the game that has been tentatively scheduled for Sunday night.
  • Fans and ticket holders must be aware that NFL games in flex weeks are subject to change 12 days in advance (6 days in Week 17) and should plan accordingly.
  • NFL schedules all games.
  • Teams will be informed as soon as they are no longer under consideration or eligible for a move to Sunday night.
  • Rules NOT listed on NFL web site but pertinent to flex schedule selection: CBS and Fox each protect games in five out of six weeks, and cannot protect any games Week 17. Games were protected after Week 4 last year as well as the first year of flexible scheduling, because NBC hosted Christmas night games those years and all the other games were moved to Saturday (and so couldn’t be flexed), but are otherwise protected after Week 5.
  • In the past, three teams could appear a maximum of six games in primetime on NBC, ESPN or NFL Network (everyone else gets five) and no team may appear more than four times on NBC. I don’t know how the expansion of the Thursday Night schedule affects this, if it does. No team starts the season completely tapped out at any measure; eight teams have five primetime appearances each, but only the Broncos and Bears don’t have at least one game that can be flexed out. A list of all teams’ number of appearances is in my Week 5 post.

Here are the current tentatively-scheduled games and my predictions:

Week 11 (November 18):

  • Selected game: Baltimore @ Pittsburgh.

Week 12 (November 25):

  • Selected game: Green Bay @ NY Giants.

Week 13 (December 2):

  • Selected game: Philadelphia @ Dallas.

Week 14 (December 9):

  • Selected game: Detroit @ Green Bay.

Week 15 (December 16):

  • Selected game: San Francisco @ New England.

Week 16 (December 23):

  • Tentative game: San Diego @ NY Jets
  • Prospects: 5-7 v. 4-8. What a horrible game, there’s no way it isn’t getting flexed… wait a second… did Rex Ryan just bench Mark Sanchez? Is that… is that the Tebow Express I hear coming into the station?!? But is it too late for even Touchdown Jesus to save the day, especially with Sanchez keeping his starting job for now?
  • Likely protections: Giants-Ravens (FOX) and Bengals-Steelers (CBS).
  • Other possible games: It helps Chargers-Jets’ case that a lot of the alternatives are questionable at best; Vikings-Texans keeps getting more and more lopsided, and Saints-Cowboys and Rams-Bucs are mediocre at best, with the Saints unable to get back to .500 in time. 49ers-Seahawks, on the other hand, currently sits at 8-3-1 v. 7-5 and may well end up deciding the NFC West, and certainly will have wild card implications.
  • Analysis: So far ahead is 49ers-Seahawks, when Vikings-Texans is the only other unprotected game with a team above .500, that it’s really the only game worth considering, and a shoo-in under normal circumstances. If Sanchez is benched for Tebow, who leads them to a win to get to 6-7, the Seahawks lose, and the Bengals and Steelers lose as well to put the Jets only one game out of a playoff spot, and there are any rumblings of Tebow keeping the starting job on Monday, then I think there is at least a chance the Tebow factor takes over and keeps the spot for Chargers-Jets – remember, NBC’s chances to get Tebow last year were stymied at every turn. But everything has to break down perfectly, or the NFC West will take over Sunday night. (The 49ers would be maxed out on primetime appearances, but it’s extremely unlikely that Cardinals-49ers would be considered for a Week 17 flex; only way that happens is if the standings set up so that a San Fran loss puts them either behind the Seahawks or tied with the Rams, and even then the Niners might still get a wild card and the NFL would have to fear that 49ers-Cardinals would be their only Week 17 option for it to trump 49ers-Seahawks.)

Week 17 (December 30):

AFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS (5-7)
WEST
49-3		 58-4
CLINCHED
NORTH
39-3		 67-5
2 teams at 7-5
EAST
29-3		 7-5
3 teams at 5-7
SOUTH
111-1
8-4
NFC Playoff Picture
DIVISION
LEADERS		 WILD CARD WAITING IN
THE WINGS
EAST
47-5		 58-4 5-6-1
2 teams at 6-6 5-7
NORTH
38-4		 67-5
8-4
WEST
28-2-1		 6-6
7-5 6-6
SOUTH
111-1		 6-6
CLINCHED 6-6
  • Tentative game: None (NBC will show game with guaranteed playoff implications).
  • Possible games: Jets-Bills, Ravens-Bengals, Bears-Lions, Packers-Vikings, Bucs-Falcons, Texans-Colts, Dolphins-Patriots, Cowboys-Redskins, Cardinals-49ers, Seahawks-Rams.

Who SHOULD Be Going to Which Bowls?

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I’ve had so much stuff on my plate I haven’t been doing any college football rankings posts for some time, and I’ll be releasing the week-by-week rankings for November throughout December (here‘s Week 8). But that won’t stop me from doing my annual roundup of the bowl matchups if they were determined by the C Ratings. Teams separated by a slash reflect adherence to the actual BCS rules; teams separated by an “or” reflect the fallout from the Georgia Tech exemption. Central Michigan is the only bowl-eligible team that doesn’t go to a bowl; Georgia Tech would knock out Middle Tennessee State.

Bowl 

Tie-ins 

Date/Time/Network 

Gildan New Mexico 

MWC /5

Dec. 15, 1 p.m. ESPN 

Albuquerque, N.M. 

Pac-12

Air Force v. Washington

Famous Idaho Potato  

MAC

Dec. 15, 4:30 p.m. ESPN

Boise, Idaho 

WAC

Utah State v. Ball State/Kent State

S.D. County Credit Union Poinsettia 

MWC

Dec. 20, 8 p.m. ESPN 

San Diego 

BYU

Boise State v. BYU

Beef ‘O’ Brady’s St. Petersburg 

Big East

Dec. 21, 7:30 p.m. ESPN 

St. Petersburg, Fla. 

C-USA

East Carolina v. (Ohio or Bowling Green)/San Jose State

R+L Carriers New Orleans 

C-USA

Dec. 22, Noon ESPN 

New Orleans 

Sun Belt

Arkansas State v. SMU (Rice?)

MAACO Las Vegas 

MWC

Dec. 22, 3:30 p.m. ESPN

Las Vegas 

Pac-12

Fresno State v. Arizona State

Sheraton Hawaii 

C-USA

Dec. 24, 8 p.m. ESPN 

Honolulu 

MWC /5

Tulsa (SMU?) v. Nevada

Little Caesars Pizza 

Big 10 (/Sun Belt)

Dec. 26, 7:30 p.m. ESPN 

Detroit 

MAC

Northern Illinois/Toledo v. Western Kentucky

Military Bowl Presented By Northrop Grumman 

ACC (/MAC )

Dec. 27, 3 p.m. ESPN 

Washington, D.C. 

Army

Kent State/Bowling Green v. San Jose State/West Virginia

Belk 

ACC

Dec. 27, 6:30 p.m. ESPN

Charlotte, N.C. 

Big East

Syracuse/Pittsburgh v. Duke or NC State

Bridgepoint Education Holiday 

Big 12

Dec. 27, 9:45 p.m. ESPN 

San Diego 

Pac-12

USC v. TCU/Baylor

AdvoCare V100 Independence 

ACC

Dec. 28, 2 p.m. ESPN 

Shreveport, La. 

SEC

Louisiana Tech v. Middle Tennessee State or Ohio

Russell Athletic 

ACC

Dec. 28, 5:30 p.m. ESPN 

Orlando, Fla. 

Big East

Pittsburgh/Cincinnati v. Virginia Tech

Meineke Car Care of Texas 

Big 12

Dec. 28, 9 p.m. ESPN

Houston 

Big 10

Texas Tech/TCU v. Purdue

Bell Helicopter Armed Forces 

C-USA

Dec. 29, 11:45 a.m. ESPN 

Fort Worth 

MWC

San Diego State v. Rice (Tulsa?)

New Era Pinstripe 

Big 12

Dec. 29, 3:15 p.m. ESPN 

Bronx, N.Y. 

Big East

Louisville v. Iowa State/Texas Tech

Kraft Fight Hunger 

Pac-12 (/ACC )

Dec. 29, 4 p.m. ESPN2 

San Francisco 

Navy (/ACC )

Arizona v. Navy

Valero Alamo 

Big 12

Dec. 29, 6:45 p.m. ESPN 

San Antonio

Pac-12

Texas/Oklahoma State v. Oregon State

Buffalo Wild Wings 

Big 12

Dec. 29, 10:15 p.m. ESPN 

Tempe, Ariz. 

Big 10 (/4?)

Baylor/Texas v. Nebraska

Franklin American Mortgage Music City 

ACC

Dec. 31, Noon ESPN 

Nashville, Tenn. 

SEC (/8?)

Vanderbilt v. Bowling Green/Ohio or Duke

Hyundai Sun 

ACC

Dec. 31, 2 p.m. CBS 

El Paso, Texas 

Pac-12

NC State or Georgia Tech v. UCLA

AutoZone Liberty 

C-USA

Dec. 31, 3:30 p.m. ESPN 

Memphis, Tenn.

SEC /9 (or 7/8?)

Central Florida v. Mississippi

Chick-fil-A 

ACC

Dec. 31, 7:30 p.m. ESPN 

Atlanta 

SEC

Clemson v. LSU

TaxSlayer.com Gator 

Big 10 (/5?)

Jan. 1, Noon ESPN2 

Jacksonville, Fla. 

SEC

Michigan v. Mississippi State

Heart of Dallas 

Big 12

Jan. 1, Noon ESPNU 

Dallas 

Big 10

West Virginia/Iowa State v. Minnesota

Outback 

Big 10

Jan. 1, 1 p.m. ESPN 

Tampa, Fla. 

SEC /4 (East)

South Carolina v. Northwestern

Capital One 

Big 10

Jan. 1, 1 p.m. ABC 

Orlando, Fla.

SEC

Georgia v. Michigan State

Rose Bowl Game presented by Vizio 

BCS (Big 10 )

Jan. 1, 5 p.m. ESPN 

Pasadena, Calif. 

BCS (Pac-12 )

Wisconsin v. Stanford

Discover Orange

BCS (ACC )

Jan. 1, 8:30 p.m. ESPN 

Miami 

BCS

Florida State v. Cincinnati/Syracuse

Allstate Sugar 

BCS (SEC )

Jan. 2, 8:30 p.m. ESPN 

New Orleans 

BCS

Florida v. Oklahoma/Northern Illinois

Tostitos Fiesta 

BCS (Big 12 )

Jan. 3, 8:30 p.m. ESPN 

Glendale, Ariz. 

BCS

Kansas State v. Notre Dame

AT&T Cotton

Big 12

Jan. 4, 8 p.m. FOX 

Arlington, Texas 

SEC /4 (West)

South Carolina v. Oklahoma State/Oklahoma

BBVA Compass 

Big East

Jan. 5, 1 p.m. ESPN 

Birmingham, Ala. 

SEC /9 (/Sun Belt)

Rutgers v. Louisiana-Lafayette

GoDaddy.com 

MAC

Jan. 6, 9 p.m. ESPN 

Mobile, Ala. 

Sun Belt

Toledo/Ball State v. Louisiana-Monroe

Discover BCS National Championship 

BCS

Jan. 7, 8:30 p.m. ESPN 

Miami 

BCS

Alabama v. Oregon

What Bob Costas’ halftime commentary should have been

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As seems to so often be the case, whenever a tragedy happens that shakes us to our very core we’re left unable to figure out how we should feel, knowing only that however we feel, someone is going to tell us we’re wrong. Such is the case with the shocking murder-suicide of Jovan Belcher on Saturday, which have left many of us unsure what to make of any of it.

We like to put people into black-and-white categories as a society – we like to have someone to blame and someone to be the victim. We like to fit everything into a nice and neat story. No one would put any blame on the girlfriend who was killed or the young girl who was orphaned; they are both clearly victims. But let’s face it, neither are they the story here. No one even knew who either of them were until they were reported in the aftermath of the tragedy. The reason this has become a national story is because the man who did it was an NFL player.

Certainly it’s hard to sympathize with Jovan Belcher, who took the life of his girlfriend and then himself, leaving his young daughter without any parents and rattling the Kansas City Chiefs organization to its core. It’s tempting to blame him, to turn him into a monster. But ultimately, it’s hard to blame him either; Belcher’s actions were in keeping with suffering from mental illness. Which brings us to the elephant in the room, the question of whether Belcher’s living, playing the particularly physical position of linebacker, had anything to do with his death.

Five and a half years ago, professional wrestler Chris Benoit took the life of his wife – and didn’t spare his son – before hanging himself. His brain was subsequently examined by neurosurgeons at West Virginia University, who compared it to that of “an 85-year-old Alzheimer’s patient”, and his father attributed his actions to the effects of repeated bumps to the head over the course of his wrestling career. For a league already haunted by the specter of concussions, as the Saints’ Bountygate appeals continue to drag on, to witness such a chillingly similar turn of events should serve as a reminder of the consequences of this sport’s brutality.

The case of Chris Benoit also, perhaps, suggests exactly what we should make of this tragedy. Before his death, Benoit was one of the more beloved figures in wrestling, but that adoration quickly turned to sadness and anger as most of Benoit’s career was all but forgotten and Benoit himself became a symbol of the effects of the culture of wrestling. Jovan Belcher was hardly a superstar, so perhaps it’s telling that we find ourselves conflicted in how to feel about him all the same. Regardless, while it’s too early to know exactly why Belcher did what he did, it’s entirely possible that in a few years, Jovan Belcher could be every bit as much a symbol of the NFL’s concussion problem as Dave Duerson, the former Chicago Bears safety who committed suicide nearly two years ago.

Sports TV War news and notes

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How much have we gotten used to having big events on cable over the past four years? When ESPN and the BCS announced, as expected, that the new college football playoff, including the championship game and non-“contract bowls”, would be going to ESPN, there was nary a peep about the fact that the new championship game would remain on cable for the life of the contract. No one, aside from Sports Media Watch, found it in any way noteworthy that college football will crown its champion on cable for a total of a decade and a half.

They should; ESPN’s Monday Night Football contract currently only ends in 2021 (though it’s likely to be extended to 2022), meaning by the time the contract for the new playoff ends, it could well be the only thing propping up ESPN’s hegemony, for a full four years. If cable has moved to an a la carte system by 2022, or if Internet streaming is making an undeniable impact on the viability of cable television, ESPN may find itself forced to move the championship game to ABC… or it could use its monopoly on the college football playoff to inflate its viewership numbers beyond what they actually should be and thus keep rights above the station those developments should by all rights place them.

Fox’s rumored victory in the race for Dodgers rights and announced acquisition of almost half of the YES network shores up the health of its regional sports network operation and technically puts Fox right back into competition with Comcast in a market. While it’ll now be a long time, if ever, before Fox is forced to leave the Los Angeles market or even shut down one of its two regional sports networks there, it doesn’t really change the calculus for the state of national FSN programming or the national FSN brand; I would bet MSG Plus was one of FSN’s more loyal non-in-house affiliates. (On the Yankees’ end, while it does hedge their risk for a potential collapse in the RSN market, it doesn’t leave them as well prepared if a streaming-heavy future replaces it.)

However, it’s clear that Fox is serious about launching an ESPN competitor, even placing it in the same tradition as the launch of the Fox network itself or the launch of Fox News as a competitor to CNN. I don’t see the point of their proposal of running ads in split-screen even when nothing is happening during the break; while it should work for NASCAR and could work for soccer and even UFC, it seems supremely pointless for other sports, and I could see advertisers balk at applying it across the board.

Sport-Specific Networks
11.5 14.5 7 6.5 1 1.5