Among the many things for which I am grateful this Christmas season is that long ago I cured my NFL addiction.
Said addiction had dated to early childhood, when I watched the NFL, but favored the AFL, whose teams, players and coaches were more colorful.
As an AFL fan, I had to endure beatdowns of the Kansas City Chiefs and Oakland Raiders at the hands of NFL champion Green Bay in the first two Super Bowls, only to have Joe Namath and the New York Jets strike one for the AFL in Super Bowl III by beating the Baltimore Colts. By then, however, the leagues had agreed to merge, an act you history buffs might appreciate for having eventually sent the Steelers to the AFC.
The genius in the growth of the NFL post-merger was making the games readily available on traditional TV, and giving a tacit nod to the betting aspect of the sport. Even before betting was widely legal, CBS in particular made a great effort to address odds and picks in its pregame shows.
But, just as we’ve moved on from once upon a time when all major boxing matches were available free on traditional over-the-air TV outlets, these days slices of NFL football are being parceled out only to those willing to pay a little extra to see the games.
It began with games showing up on the NFL Network, which a lot of people don’t receive on their cable or satellite packages.
More recently, Thursday night games have been shifted to Amazon’s Prime. I happened to get a free month of Prime recently and watched a bit of two Thursday night games on my computer. It was not nearly enough to encourage me to re-up for Prime.
As a side note, if one is patient, those Thursday night games are replayed after the fact on the NFL Network.
Coming Christmas Day, we have a couple of NFL games, including the Steelers and Kansas City Chiefs, that are being offered on Netflix. My programming guide indicates they will be replayed later that night on NFL Network.
I don’t do no Netflix, even using the sort of underhanded password sharing many previously used to partake, so I’ll be passing on the live games and I can’t see myself watching replays.
Supposedly games being livestreamed on Prime or Netflix must be available on over-the-air outlets in the home markets of teams involved, in this case CBS affiliates in Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Baltimore and Houston. But we are not in the Pittsburgh home market, so no dice for Johnstown area fans watching the Steelers live on Christmas, other than on Netflix.
There was a time when such a thing, an attractive game not available without some sort of additional charge, would have offended me. Not anymore.
I see the NBA still is showing all five of its Christmas Day offerings on ABC or ESPN. Due to lack of interest, I won’t be watching them, either. But I’m glad to see they still are available on the customary outlets, for as long as that lasts.
I’m hoping Netflix does a better job with the NFL games than it did with the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight broadcast, which I’ve read was replete with buffering and freezing issues.
But, even if there are technical problems, I’ll be spared any annoyance. Think of it as the tree falling in the woods when you aren’t present to hear it.
I’m not exactly sure how I’ll spend Christmas Day in view of the fact that a significant chunk of the family is out of town. Our official celebration will wait for January.
What I do know is I won’t be watching NFL games on Christmas Day and I’m fine with that.
Sam Ross Jr's site 