Thursday Night Football Sucks
Since 2012, the NFL has extended their weekly broadcast to include a game on Thursday nights aside from Thanksgiving Day. While the decision is great for fans, and more importantly, great for business, it’s not great for one important faction of the NFL: the players!
It’s no secret that fans can’t get enough of football. With the meteoric rise of fantasy football and the addition of daily fantasy, degenerate gamblers and casuals alike tune in weekly to see the stats their players put up. Adding an extra day of football meant an extra day of profits for the NFL. What’s important to remember, however, is that the unfortunate teams that play on Thursday night are also forced to play on short rest. The players lose the valuable Friday, Saturday and occasionally Sunday to rest their bodies and form a game plan for their opponents. The result of these short weeks is typically sloppy and frankly embarrassing football on Thursday nights. Despite an occasional competitive and exciting Thursday night game, the majority of these matchups end up disappointingly. The Thursday night match on November 17th between the Carolina Panthers and the New Orleans Saints was a great example of all that is wrong with Thursday night matchups.
On paper, this division matchup should have made for some great football. The Saints offense has been one of the best in football all year, with Drew Brees operating at an exceptional level and his weapons accurately complementing his skill set. The Panthers, while being an overall disappointment, still have last year’s MVP Cam Newton and a gradually improving defense. With both teams slightly on the outside of the playoff picture, the stakes were high and the stage was set for a great match.
What transpired, however, was a game that was hard to watch. Despite the score difference being just three points, the game moved slowly, players looked tired and neither offense was clicking. The Panthers offensive line wasn’t prepared for the Saints pitiful defense and the Saints offense, an offense that has destroyed basically every team in its way, couldn’t make plays until the fourth quarter.
Worst of all, the game featured a plethora of injuries to impact players. Saints star running back Mark Ingram exited the game in the middle of the third after getting what appeared to be a concussion after taking a nasty hit. The Panthers lost stud center Ryan Kalil to a shoulder injury and the worst injury of all occurred to Panthers’ superstar linebacker Luke Kuechly towards the end of the fourth. Kuechly got knocked in the back of his head, was down for the count and appeared visibly traumatized, as he emerged from the ground hyperventilating and in tears. Kuechly has been diagnosed with a concussion, the severity of which is currently unknown.
While typical injuries and freak accidents occur quite regularly in the NFL, the amount in this past matchup is noteworthy. Unprepared and unconditioned athletes are playing one of the world’s most dangerous sports on a short week and the effects are evident. Bad football is one thing, but when players start dropping like flies, and seemingly more often on Thursday night, the NFL has a problem that needs addressing. But as ratings on Thursday night games continue to pump revenue into the mammoth company, nothing will come to pass. The NFL has never been as concerned about player’s safety as it should and Thursday night games are a perfect example. Players like Richard Sherman have spoken out about the ridiculousness of the situation, but his and other’s concerns have fallen on deaf ears. The Panthers ended up winning the ugly game by a score of 23-20 but they lost two of their most important players. Thursday night football needs to end before a player’s career does.
NBA Approves Corporate Logos on Jerseys
Beginning in 2017, the NBA will start to resemble professional soccer. No, players will still be using their hands. Their jerseys, however, will now feature corporate logos, much like soccer jerseys.
The jersey experiment is a three year pilot program. The program will begin at the start of the 2017-18 season and may generate around $150 million annually in new revenue. The corporate logo will take the form of a 2.5 inch square patch. The NBA will be the first of the four major American sports to apply corporate logos on jersey.
Some fans are unhappy about this increased exposure to corporate America. While a sport like soccer is 90 minutes of running time action, basketball is littered with stoppage, timeouts and commercial breaks. Aside from halftime, there are no commercials to sit through while watching a soccer match. Basketball will now be exposing fans to various commercial breaks along with the branded patch on the jersey.
This type of advertising in mainstream American entertainment shouldn’t come as a surprise, however. Brands have been weaseling their way out of commercials and into the plots of movies and television shows for years, with the first broad example being the cuddly little alien E.T. loving Reese’s Pieces candies in 1981’s blockbuster, E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial. While the idea was initially Spielberg’s, the success the spotlight put on the then little-known candy helped propel it to the finger-licking stratosphere of M&M’s. Soon, brands were begging films and TV shows to have their characters interact with their products.
As commissioner Adam Silver points out, this is a program that will not affect the level of play in any way. This is a strictly a revenue generating ploy. While players will benefit from improved facilities and other perks, it is the owners and the promoted companies who will be reaping the majority of the benefits. How will fans react to seeing their favorite NBA team’s logo alongside a random billion dollar corporation? As long as Russell Westbrook is still putting up triple doubles and Stephen Curry is still hitting threes from the bench, we imagine they won’t mind too much.
Skip Bayless Spends Last Day at ESPN
In April, it was announced that ESPN’s most famous troll would be leaving the network to join FOX. That troll is Skip Bayless and he’s made his career off loudly proclaiming contrarian opinions on ESPN’s First Take and on his Twitter account. Of all the people Skip loves to hate on, LeBron James is at the top of his list. He has constantly criticized the 3-time champion, demeaning his skills and chastising him at every possible moment. Tuesday was Skip’s last day at ESPN. In perhaps the most perfectly ironic end to his stunt at as an on-air agitator, LeBron just capped off his most impressive performance to date: leading his team down from a 3-1 deficit to defeat the record-setting Golden State Warriors in Game 7 of the NBA Finals.
As Skip’s career on the world’s most famous sports network comes to an end, his biggest target is fresh off his most triumphant series. Surely Skip will be taking his flaming hot opinions to FOX. As annoying and unnerving as Bayless can be, his commitment to his beliefs is somewhat admirable. Even after LeBron completely dominated every single stat all series long, he still tweeted out that he believes the MVP of the series should’ve went to Kyrie Irving. There’s something impressive about being that stuck in your (wrong) beliefs. Good riddance, Skip. While ESPN certainly isn’t a beacon of journalist integrity, losing Bayless may be the best thing to happen to the network’s credibility in years.
