"Armchair supporters” get a bad reputation, which is unfair in my opinion. Not everybody has the time, money, ability or desire to travel to live sporting events. So what, does it make them less of a fan? And who cares if some people prefer watching their sport from the comfort of their living room. I’m often grateful when I decide not to go to football matches – just this Saturday I made the decision not to go to watch Gillingham play at Accrington Stanley (who my girlfriend thought were a firm of accountants!). A 4-3 defeat later and, whilst I was annoyed at the result, I was pleased I hadn’t spent the day travelling to the game and standing in the cold. An afternoon with Gillette Soccer Saturday, Twitter and a glass of wine seems entirely more sensible. I love attending live sport but sometimes the warmer, cheaper, calmer alternative is far more sensible.
Of course, when it comes to watching the NFL, I’m a full time armchair fan. Aside from an annual pilgrimage to Wembley, my NFL viewing is entirely dependent on the black mirror in the corner of the room. It’s the same for the overwhelming majority of UK NFL fans. So, the quality of coverage is paramount to the enjoyment of being a fan.
Luckily, the sport’s coverage in the UK is excellent. On free to air TV, there is one live game per week during the regular season. Given that the sport is overseas based and a minority sport in this country, that’s as good as it’s ever going to get. The time zone factor is an inevitable and unavoidable problem, but for a sport that isn’t played professionally in the UK to have any live free to air coverage is an achievement.
On Sky Sports, you get a minimum of 2 live games per week plus the “Red Zone” option (more of that later). When you think of this compared to the early days of Sky or indeed the pre Sky era, it’s clear that the modern day NFL fan is in a very lucky position. For those people who subscribe to ESPN there is an additional game every Monday evening, but it’s Sky who are regarded as being the television “home” of NFL in the UK. I’m sure I speak for many other fans when I say that if I didn’t have Sky then I wouldn’t be a fan of the sport at all. It was via Sky Sports that I got into the NFL and it’s on there that I spend my Sunday evenings watching the games.
So, if I’m going to be supporting an NFL team I want to be able to watch them live!
There are 2 additional options for watching teams live in the NFL from the comfort of your sofa. Firstly, there is NFL Gamepass. This is a style of coverage that I can see becoming available for a lot of other sports in the future. Similar to Sky’s Champions League coverage it enables you, via your computer, to pick from any NFL game and watch it live, as well as looking at highlights form other games and joining in with online chats, as well as lots of other sexy options. It costs around £175 for a season. It’s not an option I’ve ever had but is certainly something I’ll consider when I’ve chosen my team to support. My current thinking is that this will be the basis of a “post selection” article.
The other option provided by Sky is the “Red Zone”, conveniently enough found by pressing the red button. A simple enough system, but one that used to baffle my Nan, as any on screen request to press her Red Button led to her turning off the television by mistake. A problem that invariably led to phone calls complaining of a broken TV!
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| "There's an incompletion in St Louis!!!" |
Anyway, I digress, the red button option is reminiscent of watching Soccer Saturday or listening to Radio 5 on a weekend afternoon, but this is with live action. The uber enthusiastic Scott Hanson presents the coverage and cuts to live footage of any game that has a team within the “Red Zone” (In other words 20 yards or less from scoring a touchdown), so you can pretty much guarantee that you will see a touchdown, turnover or, at worst, a field goal every time you cut to some action. If 2 or more games are in the “red Zone simultaneously then we just watch a re run of the non live game(s). When no games are in the “Red Zone” then Hanson shouts excitedly about mundane events. “We’re going to Carolina, where the Bills are in midfield and about to punt!!!” Cut to said punt being kicked out of the end zone and back to Hanson looking a bit unsure about where to go next. It’s a fairly enjoyable way to watch the coverage, and I end up watching it if the live game on Sky is either dull or one sided. But the main problem I have with Red Zone is that you don’t get the “story” of any game. You just get the best bits. I’m not a fan of watching sport in highlight form. For example if you watch cricket highlights you know every ball shown will be a wicket, a four, a six or occasionally a dropped catch, you get no real understanding of how the game is developing – what is happening in between? Are the batsmen struggling? Is the bowl turning? And so on.
It the same with the NFL – take the recent New Orleans v San Francisco play off match. Most people agree that it was an all time classic and certainly it was the best match I’ve watched since I became a fan. But imagine watching that on Red Zone if there were 10 other games being played at the same time. You’d just have seen a succession of touchdown plays and would even have missed a few of them as they were long yardage scores. It would have taken away from the majesty of the match entirely. Similarly, had the San Francisco - New York Giants game been a regular season Red Zone match then it’s probably that we would have missed the game defining moment. We wouldn’t have seen the punt return fumble that led to the game winning field goal; instead we would have just cut to the match to watch Lawrence Tynes go for the, relatively short, game winning kick.
So, at present it’s Sky Sports for my main NFL fix plus the occasional Channel 4 late night match with the aid of Sky+. I usually accompany my viewing by logging on to NFL.com for the latest scores from other games and some highlights form key moments in matches. Whilst I’m keen to explore other options such as Gamepass, I thoroughly enjoy my current Sunday evening viewing option.
So what’s this got to do with me picking a team to support? Well, being an armchair fan it stands to reason that I want my team to be shown live on TV! If I end up not getting Gamepass then it’s my only chance to see my team play live.
This elimination is going to be based on the team that was shown least on TV last season. In some ways this is unfair, as the live TV schedule changes every year and in the second half of the season it is based on the most meaningful games at that point. A team shown 0 times this season could end up being shown 10 times next. In many ways this season’s figures are irrelevant – but hey, I’ve got 31 teams to eliminate and to quote Snoop from the Wire “deserve got nothing to do with it”.
Over the course of the 2011 regular season, the number of times each was shown live in the UK was:
11
| New York Giants |
10
| Green Bay Packers |
9
| Dallas Cowboys |
9
| New York Jets |
9
| Pittsburgh Steelers |
8
| Philadelphia Eagles |
7
| Chicago Bears |
7
| New Orleans Saints |
6
| Baltimore Ravens |
6
| New England Patriots |
6
| San Diego Chargers |
5
| Atlanta Falcons |
5
| Detroit Lions |
5
| Minnesota Vikings |
5
| Tampa Bay Bucs |
4
| Denver Broncos |
4
| Indianapolis Colts |
4
| Jacksonville Jaguars |
4
| Kansas City Chiefs |
4
| Miami Dolphins |
4
| Oakland Raiders |
3
| Cincinnati Bengals |
3
| San Francisco 49ers |
3
| Washington Redskins |
2
| Buffalo Bills |
2
| Carolina Panthers |
2
| Houston Texans |
2
| Seattle Seahawks |
2
| St Louis Rama |
2
| Tennessee Titans |
1
| Cleveland Browns |
0
| Arizona Cardinals |
As I’ve said before, it’s fairly irrelevant information, although it might prompt a few talking points. But I’m operating a strict elimination policy so it’s goodbye to Arizona.
It’s worth noting that over the first 8 weeks of the season no team were shown more than 4 times, but in the last 9 weeks the Giants were televised 8 times!
Dallas and the Jets received 9 live games despite not reaching the play offs whilst Houston were only shown twice even though they won their division.
Other anomalies include:
The Vikings being shown 5 times even though they had a dreadful season.
San Francisco only getting 3 live games, but finishing as second seeds in the NFC.
Indianapolis getting 3 of their first 8 games live on TV. Probably due to expectations being high before the start of the season.
On the flip side the Bengals had no TV coverage up to week 8 and then were show 3 times in the second half of the season.
The strange thing about Arizona being the only non televised team is that they had a number of memorable games in 2011, including 4 overtime victories and finished the season with a respectable 8-8 record. It was certainly a more memorable season for the Cardinals than it was for the likes of the Jaguars (4 live games), the Chargers (6) and the Eagles (8).
I’m a bit sad to be eliminating the Cardinals as they feature some of the most exciting players in the league in Larry Fitzgerald and Patrick Peterson, as well as being one of the more likeable franchises in the league. I’ve had a soft spot for them since their Superbowl run in 2008-09, but rules are rules so I won’t be supporting Arizona next season…
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