NFL Regional Television Coverage: Created by the Devil
Sunday was the beginning of the new NFL season and like many people I was excited to sit back and watch some interesting games. I got home from church at about 11:50, ten minutes to kickoff. I decided to go to NFL.com and see what games to look forward to. There was a pretty good choice of games slotted for noon.
The game that I thought would be most interesting was Philadelphia and Green Bay. Brett Favre and Donovan McNabb are both great quarterbacks and that could be a nice matchup. I was also hoping to see Carolina at St. Louis. Admittedly I’m not a big fan of either team but I have Steve Smith and Torry Holt on each of my Fantasy Football teams and was hoping for them to both put up big numbers.
There were other games that had some kind of interest also. Randy Moss’ debut for the Patriots could be interesting. I have relatives in Buffalo so I sort of root for Bills because of them and my entire family except for me is from Pittsburgh so I have some interest in the Steelers. There were only three games that I had no interest in. The Atlanta/Minnesota game, the Tenneseee/Jacksonville game, and the Miami/Washington game.
Finally the clock strikes noon and CBS and Fox start their choice of football games. It is then that I remember they both have regional coverage. Therefore the two games that I got to watch were Atlanta vs. Minnesota and Tennessee vs. Jacksonville. Ugh.
For those of you who don’t know what regional coverage is let me explain. CBS airs games from the AFC and Fox airs games from the NFC. They are allowed to show whatever game they want so they usually have regional coverage meaning that anybody who lives in the Texas region will see one of the Texas games. If you live in the California region then your game will be Oakland, San Diego or San Francisco. Since I live in the Southeast my regional teams are the Tennessee Titans and Atlanta Falcons, two teams that are so boring that Michael Vick couldn’t make the Falcons interesting and Vince Young can’t make the Titans interesting.
Regional coverage is ridiculous. I understand that the home state of a team is mostly going to be made up of fans of that team. I don’t live in Tennessee though, and I don’t live in Georgia. I live in Alabama. There is no team in Alabama. Do the people in charge of these networks think that I sit here going “well, there is no team in Alabama, therefore I’m required to be a fan of the team within the closest proximity of me.”
No, I don’t do that! I don’t even use the word proximity! I have no team in my home state so I choose a team I like based on how fun they are to watch and the Atlanta Falcons and Tennessee Titans are somewhere at the bottom of that list.
It’s not just me either; the rest of the state is like this too. When the Tennessee Titans first began playing there were some Titans fans around but it was really just because expansion teams are hip for some reason, like when the Charlotte Hornets first started playing in the NBA they were the hip team to like. Since then the Titans love has died down and I don’t know a single Titans fan. As for the Atlanta Falcons, I have never come across a single Atlanta Falcons in the entire twenty-seven years I’ve lived in Alabama.
I can understand airing a Tennessee Titans game in Tennessee and an Atlanta Falcons game in Georgia but don’t drag Alabama into this. If a state does not have a team then the game that is aired there should simply but what is believed to be the best game on at that time. Instead I’m going to have to watch the Atlanta Falcons play all season long.
