By Cyote Williams | Times Vedette

Winter sports in full swing

As I was writing the sports section for the Times Vedette this morning, I attempted to find different ways to describe the Panorama and ACGC winter sports teams starting their seasons. That, and the fact that it looks like I’ll have to warm my car up every morning now, helped me realize that winter is truly here. Good luck to each of those programs this season. And be sure to check out our winter sports guide, which features the ACGC and Panorama basketball and wrestling teams, by clicking here. 

Why I hate Black Friday games

Certain aspects of my life make me realize that I like the “old way” of doing things. I like classical architecture. I like old movies. I like a fair amount of old music. I prefer analog controls like buttons and dials on cars as opposed to screens. But, when it comes to sports, I’m much the opposite.

I appreciate the recent changes made by the MLB to make games faster. I don’t believe that basketball players who hit the court in Converse shoes years ago are as good at basketball, or as athletic, as modern NBA players. And, no one can convince me that Joe Namath or Roger Staubach could be an NFL quarterback today. But, one place where I draw the line and prefer the days of old is when it comes to the NFL’s scheduling. That may sound like an odd place to mark a line in the sand, but I’ll explain.

In 1961, congress passed the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961. There are plenty of legal reasons that went into why this was passed, but you simply need to know that the main purpose was to prevent NFL broadcasts from interfering with amateur sports such as high school and college football. If you want the details, HERE is a good article that explains the innerworkings.

High school games on Friday, college games on Saturday, and the NFL on Sunday and Monday. A football game for each day of the weekend and another one to get you past the Monday blues sounded good to me. This was a great system that had been in place for decades, but the NFL, and admittedly college, too, bent these rules in recent years.

For example, today, Friday, Nov. 28, the Chicago Bears play the Philadelphia Eagles in Philly. Not only that, but there is a full slate of college football games broadcast today. It is bad enough that the Bears are playing on national TV (the Packers would be fine), but Iowa also faces Nebraska today (the Cyclones would be fine). There should a set of laws against those teams being seen by the masses.

The NFL and the NCAA have discovered certain exceptions and work-arounds in recent years. The main rules of the law are making sure the times do not overlap, and that no high school game is being played at the same time as a college or NFL broadcast within 75 miles. What gives me pause, though, is TV vs. streaming.

The language in the act says, “sponsored telecasting of the games on a television station.” Since streaming platforms like Amazon Prime Video or Netflix are not technically a television station, the same rules don’t apply to them. The argument could (and should) be made that, in effect, they are.

You can spare me the argument that the NFL or the NCAA — or streaming platforms — are doing this for the benefit of the fans. The more games they can get on the air in different time slots on different days, the more money they can make, and they are all seemingly happy to bend the rules to do so. Is it life-threatening or world shattering that the NFL and NCAA are playing football on a Friday? No. But, it does annoy me that the traditional way of doing this is being changed to simply fill some already deep pockets. Chew on that with your leftover turkey.

Reach out with comments, complaints, story ideas and more to cyote@dmcityview.com.