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Network Picks Baseball Over Football

G-Fafif Dec 17 2014 08:38 AM

I suppose the news that the U.S. and Cuba might normalize relations is the most surprising thing I've learned today, but this comes in a close second: Today, it would be unthinkable for an NFL game to not be televised. So when was the last time an NFL regular season game did not appear on TV at all? According to the historical NFL TV research at 506sports, the answer is 1975 (when it happened twice). The last untelevised NFL game was on Saturday 11/1/1975 when the Giants hosted the Chargers at 1 pm. Why was there an NFL game on a mid-season Saturday? The Giants shared Shea Stadium with the Jets that year as their new stadium in the Meadowlands was under construction. Shea was unavailable to the NFL until the MLB season ended as the Mets were the primary tenant. This forced the Giants and Jets to play on the road the first two weeks of the season. To squeeze in 14 home games at Shea over 12 weeks, the NFL scheduled the Giants for a few Saturday home dates. For games like this played outside of the normal network TV windows, the NFL allowed the road team to sell the TV rights to a local station (same thing for the home team if the game was a sellout). But no local station opted to pick up this game so it was not on TV. So when was the last Sunday afternoon NFL game which went untelevised? That occurred just a few weeks earlier when the Patriots played at Cincinnati on Sunday 10/12/1975 at 1 pm. Why did TV shun that game? Well, NBC aired game 2 of the Cincinnati-Boston World Series that day at 1 pm. The same option for teams to sell the local TV rights applied in cases like this when NBC carried a Sunday baseball postseason game. All of the early afternoon NFL games bumped from NBC that day were televised by a local station except for NE-Cin. With the World Series featuring teams from the same TV markets, no local station wanted to televise it and compete with baseball. The idea that baseball would render an NFL game to not be televised seems hard to believe now, but it happened in 1975. Things to love here: 1) The presence of Shea in any historical finding 2) The contractual primacy of the Mets at Shea 3) The reminder that there was life before the NFL swallowed everything 4) The twist that the same markets in the World Series had their football teams playing each other the same day 5) That NBC was executing a "last" less than 24 hours after airing a "first" -- the debut of SNL I'd also throw in this helps explain a clear memory I have of a Sunday afternoon in 1978 when the Jets-Colts game from Baltimore aired on Channel 11. Colts games (I think by municipal blue law) couldn't start before 2 PM (or maybe just didn't by tradition), which would've punted it from the "normal" 1-4 PM window. WNBC apparently didn't want to deal with it so WPIX took it. The game sticks out as well because throughout, though it used regular NBC announcers, I don't think it was identified as such -- not a simulcast the way you'll see an ESPN game show up on a local station, for example. There were also constant reminders that there were still tickets available for next Sunday's game at Shea, which I guess was worth mentioning in the days when the Jets weren't a guaranteed sellout. This was the season the Matt Robinson Jets flirted with Wild Card contention but attendance hadn't quite caught up to the standings. As the article suggests, imagine any of this happening today.

Ceetar Dec 17 2014 08:46 AM Re: Network Picks Baseball Over Football

The biggest reason I think this wouldn't happen today is because both leagues would realize the way to maximize revenue would be to NOT put two big draws up against each other. Also the logistics and police protection and all that are bigger considerations. I always wondered what sort of toll having 4 teams sharing one stadium had on Shea. I never remember Shea not feeling a little well-worn, and I wonder if that time had a large impact on that feeling.

G-Fafif Dec 17 2014 08:59 AM Re: Network Picks Baseball Over Football

The Giants-Chargers game referenced took place a couple of days after the infamous "FORD TO CITY: DROP DEAD" headline in the Daily News, worth noting in that municipal budgets for items like stadium maintenance must've been as bald as the grass. Met Fairy, a regular at 1975 Jets home games, has noted on a couple of occasions that by December, the field appeared beyond the repair of even Pete Flynn's wizardry.

G-Fafif Dec 17 2014 12:29 PM Re: Network Picks Baseball Over Football

Just put together the final piece of why that 1978 Jets game from Baltimore was on Channel 11: not just because it was at 2 o'clock, per usual Memorial Stadium scheduling but because the MFYs were in the WS in a game (Game Five vs. LA) that started at 4:30 that afternoon on Channel 4 (they still played weekend World Series games in daytime). NBC's AFC window was 1 PM in the east, so the Jets, starting at 2, wouldn't have been off in time for first pitch. That's where the policy about road team selling TV rights to another local station kicked in.

G-Fafif Jan 03 2015 07:03 PM Re: Network Picks Baseball Over Football

Expanded on this topic here.