|
How much is tube
much?
Posted: Tue September 22,
1998
One of the most bizarre things I ever heard keeps coming
back to haunt me. About two hours after he sprinted into
history with the 99-yard kickoff return that blew open
Super Bowl
XXXI for Green Bay, Desmond Howard jumped into a limo for a ride
to the
Packers' postgame party near the French Quarter. On the way,
while twirling a huge cigar between his fingers
(faithful Flem File readers: Hey, thanks for coming back,
you two! Please, um, insert your own Presidential cigar
joke
here), Howard explained that in the final few yards of his
TD run, he was nearly caught from behind because he had slowed
down to watch himself on the giant
TV screen inside the Superdome.
Think about that for a sec. Howard nearly went from hero to
buffoon, almost cost himself a place in the record books,
not to mention several million dollars, just so he could
watch himself on TV. What has happened during the last 10
years, with the
spread of cable and mind-numbing 300-channel satellite TV
services, that has brainwashed our generation of sports
fans into thinking:
It didn't really happen unless
I saw it on TV?
Proof of that was everywhere during the Lions-Vikings game
I attended on Sunday in Minneapolis. The Lions' rookie
quarterback, 23-year-old Charlie Batch, said the only thing
different between playing college ball in Ypsilanti, Mich.,
and playing in the
NFL is that all his games would now be on TV, so he'd have
to get used to
TV timeouts. Several times during Sunday's game, Lions
quarterback coach Jim Zorn pointed out tactical errors to
the rookie on the Metrodome's
JumboTron.
It's gotten to the point that attending sporting events in
person is almost like stepping into a giant TV set. What a
bizarre and surreal scene: 63,000 folks abandon a rare,
beautiful, blue-sky day in Minneapolis to come into a
climate-controlled steel
cave with fluorescent light and fake grass, sit in expensive
seats and, most of the time, watch the game unfold on the
30-foot screens behind each end zone. Fans got more excited
when they appeared on the JumboTron than when the Vikes
scored. The screens
in the 'Dome, on which you can watch one lucky fan win a
25-pound nut roll during each game, actually dwarf the
American flag hanging
nearby.
That about sums it up. Last year
TV rights for the
NFL went for a cool $17 billion. If I'm doing the math
correctly—and God knows there's little chance of
that—then for $2 billion less, the networks could have
just
bought all 30 teams for $500 million per franchise. But in this
day and age
I guess renting the
TV rights is more important than owning the freakin' teams
outright. We live in a time when the President's videotaped
testimony is more popular than
Titanic, music videos mean more than the music, and getting on TV
is more important to football players than getting to
Canton.
Don't throw your little fake
TV brick at me just yet. I'm addicted to the
set just as much as the next guy. I'd rather steal a TV than
miss a
Seinfeld rerun. The first time I saw the Super Bowl in person I was
actually a little bummed about having to miss the
commercials. In other words, you can have my remote control
when you peel it out of my cold, dead hand.
But how much is tube much? At last year's Super Bowl some
company was demonstrating the latest craze in stadium
seating—chairs with little TVs attached to the
armrest, what can only be described as the bus-station
boob-tube taken to a horrific extreme.
This,
I fear, marks the beginning of the end for live sports.
Think of it: a set in your lap, a network on the sidelines
and JumboTrons in each end zone. Soon the day will come
when we will all fork over 75 bucks a seat, just so we can
watch ourselves, watching ourselves, watch the game on
TV.
Sports Illustrated staff writer David Fleming posts the
Fleming File each Tuesday on
CNNSI.com.
Spanning the strange and wonderful world of sports, the Flem File has visited
a nudist colony, investigated nasal strips, tried out for the Olympic bobsled
team and endured injury and humiliation at the NFL Experience. What, or who,
should we riff on next week? If you've got a suggestion, a comment or a
question, don't just sit there, bring it on! Click here to send an e-mail to
Flem, or address it yourself: flemfile@aol.com.
|
