The Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indiana wants to have a Super Bowl party for their paritioners so that they can have a place to gather and watch their local football team in the big game. Projecting the game up on the wall would provide a safe place to watch the game where there would be no alcohol and could be attended by children. There’s only one problem, and that is the threat of a lawsuit from the NFL.
[…] The NFL objected to the church’s plans to use a projector to show the game, saying the law limits it to one TV no bigger than 55 inches. […] NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league’s long-standing policy is to ban “mass out-of-home viewing” of the Super Bowl. An exception is made for sports bars and other businesses that show televised sports as a part of their everyday operations. We have contracts with our (TV) networks to provide free over-the-air television for people at home,” Aiello said. “The network economics are based on television ratings and at-home viewing. Out-of-home viewing is not measured by Nielsen.”
I think that that is a rediculous stance by the NFL. I can understand that they want to prohibit charging the parishioners entry to watch the game, and I can understand wanting to protect their trademark on the “Super Bowl” brand. However, I would think that they would want as many people as possible exposed to that brand as possible, not only for their game itself but also for their advertising.
They should be more mindful of teams like the California Golden Bears and Washington State, who got around the lack of television coverage in California by using a slingbox to broadcast the game for local fans that couldn’t travel. That is known as looking out for your constituency.
I hope that this story gets well publicized and that the NFL gets a lot of flack from it. I hope that they change their stance and allow Fall Creek Baptist Church to enjoy the game. But this is a commercial enterprise, and not being able to track some people that probably aren’t a part of the Nielson ratings anyway is apparently some great sin.
Update: According to The Christian Post, the NFL also has a problem with the church showing a recording of Tony Dungy and Lovie Smith’s Christian testimonies. Apparently, the NFL does not want to have their games shown along with any sort of “message” no matter the content. Because advertising and commercials never have a message…(Thanks to David Peach for the Christian Post article; I had not seen that one yet.)
(Sources: Sports Illustrated – LBD – The Christian Post)
WHAT!! IT’S OK TO GO TO A BAR AND WATCH THE SUPER BOWL, BUT CHRISTIANS CANNOT GATHER TOGETHER WITHOUT, THE ATMOSPHERE OF A BAR TO WATCH A FOOTBALL GAME? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?? WHAT IS WRONG WITH THE UNITED STATES IN ALLOWING THIS??? THIS IS A FORM OF DISCRIMINATION AND SHOULD BE CORRECTED. UNFORTUNATELY I DO NOT THINK THAT THE NFL WANTS ALL THIS BAD PUBLICITY…….
Supposedly bars pay a special fee to be able to show these events (according to a forum thread I read). Churches, however, do not. What is odd is the 55″ “Law.” Is that really a law? So when you watch a game at a store that sells 62″ TVs, is the store breaking the law? Seems really odd.
As far as bad publicity, unfortunately, this happened too close to the game to get a big stir going. In 2 days, no one will care any more until next year.
The bars may pay a fee to the television networks and what not, but the ruling between the networks and the NFL specifically exclude anywhere that uses the display of the games as a major selling point as a part of their business. The churches were only using the game as a special event that they wanted to promote.