trekbkr Posted October 20, 2010 Share Posted October 20, 2010 The Saturday night game in Week 2 of the XFL season featured Chicago and L.A. in a back-and-forth shootout which went multiple overtimes. Since this was in February, and therefore TV sweeps time, Saturday Night Live had one of its biggest guests of the season, Jennifer Lopez. But, since no one at NBC ever stopped to consider that live sporting events sometimes run later than scheduled, the overtime game bumped the news back, and local stations still got their full 35-minute newscasts, which meant that SNL started late on tape-delay. Lorne Michaels, who naturally had a whole lot more pull at the network than a 2-week-old football league, went absolutely ballistic at being pushed back, and lower-than-expected ratings seemed to justify his rage. So the network made the league change its timing rules immediately, to ensure that its programming wouldn't be affected in such a fashion again. That did quite a bit to sour relations between the league and the network. Of the 1,057 things that went wrong in the XFL, that was one of the bigger ones.(Bold added)In that case, though, NBC did have the authority to insist on those changes. NBC partnered with Vince McMahon to create the league. They were part owner of the whole XFL enterprise. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
illwauk Posted October 22, 2010 Share Posted October 22, 2010 The Saturday night game in Week 2 of the XFL season featured Chicago and L.A. in a back-and-forth shootout which went multiple overtimes. Since this was in February, and therefore TV sweeps time, Saturday Night Live had one of its biggest guests of the season, Jennifer Lopez. But, since no one at NBC ever stopped to consider that live sporting events sometimes run later than scheduled, the overtime game bumped the news back, and local stations still got their full 35-minute newscasts, which meant that SNL started late on tape-delay. Lorne Michaels, who naturally had a whole lot more pull at the network than a 2-week-old football league, went absolutely ballistic at being pushed back, and lower-than-expected ratings seemed to justify his rage. So the network made the league change its timing rules immediately, to ensure that its programming wouldn't be affected in such a fashion again. That did quite a bit to sour relations between the league and the network. Of the 1,057 things that went wrong in the XFL, that was one of the bigger ones.(Bold added)In that case, though, NBC did have the authority to insist on those changes. NBC partnered with Vince McMahon to create the league. They were part owner of the whole XFL enterprise.The issue isn't about whether or not ESPN had the authority to do what they did (since they obviously don't... assuming this is all true). It's about the integrity of the game being affected by the networks and ultimately the sponsors. The multiple, on-the-fly rule adaptions according to what the network/advertisers wanted alienated whatever fans the XFL still had and it certainly didn't help that its main owner was in the "sports entertainment" business.Granted, the NFL has a bit more credibility to spare than the XFL, but we all see what letting marketing steer the direction of your league has done for the NBA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
trekbkr Posted October 23, 2010 Share Posted October 23, 2010 The Saturday night game in Week 2 of the XFL season featured Chicago and L.A. in a back-and-forth shootout which went multiple overtimes. Since this was in February, and therefore TV sweeps time, Saturday Night Live had one of its biggest guests of the season, Jennifer Lopez. But, since no one at NBC ever stopped to consider that live sporting events sometimes run later than scheduled, the overtime game bumped the news back, and local stations still got their full 35-minute newscasts, which meant that SNL started late on tape-delay. Lorne Michaels, who naturally had a whole lot more pull at the network than a 2-week-old football league, went absolutely ballistic at being pushed back, and lower-than-expected ratings seemed to justify his rage. So the network made the league change its timing rules immediately, to ensure that its programming wouldn't be affected in such a fashion again. That did quite a bit to sour relations between the league and the network. Of the 1,057 things that went wrong in the XFL, that was one of the bigger ones.(Bold added)In that case, though, NBC did have the authority to insist on those changes. NBC partnered with Vince McMahon to create the league. They were part owner of the whole XFL enterprise.The issue isn't about whether or not ESPN had the authority to do what they did (since they obviously don't... assuming this is all true). It's about the integrity of the game being affected by the networks and ultimately the sponsors. The multiple, on-the-fly rule adaptions according to what the network/advertisers wanted alienated whatever fans the XFL still had and it certainly didn't help that its main owner was in the "sports entertainment" business.Granted, the NFL has a bit more credibility to spare than the XFL, but we all see what letting marketing steer the direction of your league has done for the NBA.Right -- ESPN's coverage of the NFL is supposed to be closer to what we think of as "pure journalistic" sports coverage. My point was that NBC's part ownership of the XFL made that kind of integrity and credibility a moot point. That league was created to be a TV program, so the same standards of credibility didn't apply in that case. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Admiral Posted October 24, 2010 Share Posted October 24, 2010 The NFL is a TV program, honestly. ♫ oh yeah, board goes on, long after the thrill of postin' is gone ♫ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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