The NFL is only a channel away

By Gary Geffen Sports Central Columnist

Since the ballooning of player salaries about 25 years ago, ticket prices rival the Dow Jones average and merchandise is so expensive you have to think to yourself: groceries this week, or a Buccaneers hat? Team owners, like any other business, had to find more creative ways to fund paying player salaries that equal the Gross Domestic Product of most third-world nations.

Ingenious revenue stirrers include heavy-dollar grabbers like a network entirely devoted to Major Leagues Baseball's Manna from heaven, the New York Yankees, and satellite packages that carry the top-four sports out-of-broadcast-area games. The only thing left is to go where only golf has gone and create a channel exclusive to the NFL.

It shouldn't be that hard to get going. After all, NFL Films has been hocking "Follies," "Greatest Hits," and "Football's Faultiest Jockstraps" videos to the football lover since Ed Sabol figured out how to get his lens cover off his camera in the mid-1960s. Besides filming every game, NFL Films is involved in more than 120 pieces each week for the networks along with its own five weekly shows. With that much documentation, 24 hours in a day and a 6% unemployment rate, the possibilities of continuous day-night football is the NFL's perfect pearl-yielding oyster.

Hey, let me tell you something, folks -- anyone who is willing to go shirtless for a January game in Green Bay is going to sit down with a brat and a beer and enjoy "Football's Dumbest Drafts" and "Bengals Lose the Darnest Games." We're not talking a network catering to just meat and potatoes lovers, either, no way -- people from all walks of life enjoy football.

For our ever-ready friends willing to dedicate their life to making sure you get yours and they get theirs, lawyers can enjoy "Litigation Roundtable," where Al Davis and three of his lawyers discuss the strategies of his numerous lawsuits against the NFL. The PBS lover will just get a giddy happy toe curling feeling when "The NFL Memorabilia Roadhouse" theme starts. Where else can you see Terry Bradshaw's old toupee or commemorative Emmitt Smith Pepsi cans? O.J. and the "NFL Conspiracy" should leave the political enthusiast well-watched, as well.

You have to give the fans something if you want them to stick around. If you charge more without giving more, owners will end up with a Boston Tea Party instead of tailgating. An all-football channel provides the fan year-round uninterrupted interest on everything that is football, causing them to make a reservation for the couch and TV on opening Sunday months in advance.

Fans want the players, the players want the money, and the owners want the fans. The more things cost, the more the owners need people to depend on the product. We'll watch, too, because if we don't, then the dollars go and the talent goes, too. Then what's left to do on a Sunday in November?

Article courtesy of Sports Central.