NBC and AFL: It’s Time to Talk.
Tim Ball
Wednesday May 5, 2004
We look at articles written by outsiders and say, “How dare they?” But what we should be shouting at the league office is, “How can they?”
What should be a comparison of the AFL to the NFL, like INDY is to NASCAR, is being reported as anything but. Quality is being overlooked, and it is glaringly so.
Like the political parties, corporate sports minds no longer know who “we” are. It may be nice to look down from a Madison Avenue office at the little people scurrying down below, but remember it is they who are paying the rent for those gilded high rises. And anyway, Arena Football fans prefer to be close to the action. The gap between the elites and the values of the masses never existed in Arena Football and maybe that is just too hard for NBC to understand.
Does NBC even know what we want? Have they asked a single loyal fan for their perspective? How can they know about the AFL without asking a season ticket holder’s advice? Are they asking anyone?
Does the league office come down from on high? It seems unlikely the way the games are filled with goofiness and gimmicks. Just when one team gains momentum, the game is halted for someone from the stands to win a T-Shirt.
Moral myopia aside, network television exists solely to sell “things.” And without an endless line of eager buyers to return time and again to their tent of bazaar offerings, they have to pack up and move away. But certainly NBC should have to offer more than just a small shop at the mall of channels to be considered a partner in the product of the Arena Football League.
Where are the “Up Close and Personal” segments that NBC is famous for and that this league produces in abundance? The players who battle in “The 50-Yard Indoor War” are far more excellent then some whining first-round draft pick who can insult an entire league and get away with it.
Has NBC done little more than sit back and have everyone else do the work? Their jaded view of sports has been formed by the vapid package of corporate deals that have molded the big three: baseball, basketball, and that felonious brawl of violence known as hockey. The big three sports use their fans as no more than a bully does with the little guy’s lunch money, and only the fear of loss keeps the little guy coming back for more.
Jim Gintonio quoted NBC Sports president Ken Schanzer in a May 1st article for the Arizona Republic, titled “NBC Unclear on Arena League Future”, that it will be all or nothing if NBC stays involved with the league next year. “That’s what they are, zero or 10,” Schanzer was quoted as saying.
Let’s see, NBC paid nothing for the television rights for the AFL. Something is only worth how much you pay for it. Isn’t that how the old saying goes? You do the math.
The quality existing in the arena game is as foreign a concept to network television as a normal libido. The league was thriving and growing and gaining respect each year. The sole reason was the quality of the players and the sport itself. Now, who knows if the game scheduled to be televised will even make it or not.
Where are the grass roots programs that seemed on the way before the season started? If the league would stop the sideshows that embarrass and slow the games, and just have the game and its players speak for itself, there would be very few empty seats. If NBC would respect the league, solidify and stick with programming schedules, then consistency would be established. A structure does not rise without a strong base.
Arena Football has brought a new light to millions of people in its heroic All-American story of struggle. The players are attaining respect for their abilities as quality athletes in a legitimate league. But that light is constantly dimmed by sports reporting that uses biting innuendo and smug insults about peripheral things but find little fault in the action. However, underlying the caustic opinion is a small voice saying there is a place for good men to play a good sport and what the AFL could be is being lost in translation.
The game
Athletes who have long ago stopped caring about the sports in which they earn a living, or those psuedo-fans who pay to sit at games and talk on cellphones, will never be a part of Arena Football. And no one in the AFL wants them here either. They won’t stay anyway as they value things through a self-centered agenda and Arena Football is anything but selfish. They can never see the beauty of guys like Hunkie Cooper or Barry Wagner who have a pride in athletics that hasn’t been seen in America for 40 years.
Network television is no more different than four pimps at an intersection, always selling love but never able to see it looking back into their own eyes. Because they are too busy with cash and trying to attract the next customer with the hope of value in a meaningless act, the consequences hurt only the family, and that family is the Arena Football game, from player to fan to franchise owner.
NBC was not forced to join the AFL. Taking the wrong path has sidetracked what started out with promise. If there is no respect for the schedule and times that the games are to be played, there is little likeliness of the league being helped by involvement with a network that trivializes the actual games themselves.
The league needs to refocus and return to value the game again. Commissioner David Baker is still the leader for our league. His desire to bring quality to Arena Football must be the driving force for the future.
There needs to be a redirection back to the sport that has the right to stand as a legitimate brand of football.
The comparison is fair: there is no more difference between the Arena Football League and the NFL than there is between NASCAR and Indycar. Quality in is quality out.
If NBC wants to continue, it is time they do it the right way and look to Arena Football fans and the sport itself, and the league needs to get back on the track to solidifying respect for the league through televising a legitimate sport.
Tim Ball is a writer in the Chicagoland area. Married and father of three, his opinions on Arena Football reflects the positive aspect of the game as a family event second to none in pro sports.
