- Comment
From Don DuPerault
2-1-4
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- As we've seen for several years, the NFL threatens any
broadcaster from even mentioning the phrase "Super Bowl". They
are forced to call it "the big game" and use similar phrasing.
If people are searching for Super Bowl information, how are they able
to find anything if they have to guess the alternate phrases people are
using? What if we could no longer mention the word "Porsche"
and instead had to search for "German" and "car manufacturer"?
Is Porsche the ONLY German car manufacturer?
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- The NFL has gone even further by making it a crime to
show the game on TV's that are bigger than 55". I understand that
copying and distributing DVDs of the game is a copyright infringement,
but having a TV larger than 55" being tuned to the channel where the
public can view signals being broadcast IN THE CLEAR is a crime?
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- It's time the fans give the middle finger to the NFL
and stop going to the games, stop buying football packages on satellite
TV, and stop buying NFL sanctioned products. The lawyers are hurting the
fans! Don't they care?
Super Bowl Is NFL's Party, But Las Vegas Gets The
Big Picture And The Last Laugh
By John L. Smith
Las Vegas Review-Journal
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The beer is iced, the pizza is sliced, the game is priced.
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- It's Super Bowl Sunday, but you only thought it was your
party. The game belongs to the National Football League.
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- By far the most entertaining aspect of the Super Bowl
isn't the game on the field or the commercials between plays. It's watching
the NFL's hilariously hypocritical stance against all things Vegas while
providing the city with its biggest weekend of the year.
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- Whether it's issuing a hand-wringing rejection of an
advertisement for Las Vegas or sending a cease-and-desist letter to local
casinos who defiled the sacred game by displaying it on extra-large screens,
the league's pretense of piety knows no bounds.
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- The hypocrisy hunt doesn't take long.
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- Take the NFL's stance on sports betting. On the record,
it's adamantly opposed to all forms of betting.
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- But on the Internet, the NFL barely conceals its betting
jones.
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- Just for the howl of it, call up superbowl.com. The league's
official Super Bowl site is sponsored by CBS.SportsLine.com, which offers
a wide variety of stats and stories -- and if you search for "odds"
or "point spread" you'll get enough connections to offshore bookmakers
to make a self-respecting Mafia boss blush.
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- In reality, Las Vegas sports books accepted nearly $72
million in Super Bowl wagers last year, a small fraction of the estimated
$5 billion bet on the game illegally.
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- Bookmakers and gamblers have influenced the NFL since
its inception, and popular retired players have parlayed their name recognition
into good livings as celebrity touts. One recent example is former Dallas
Cowboys defensive lineman Randy White, who handicaps games for the WinningEdge.com
sports service.
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- Last year, Mayor Oscar Goodman made hilarious political
hay -- and generated an estimated $12 million in free publicity -- from
the NFL's laughable ban on Las Vegas-themed advertising during the Super
Bowl. The league built by bookies and boosted by a nation of gamblers didn't
want to soil its reputation by associating with the heathen casino crowd.
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- Now it's the turn of The Orleans and Palms casinos to
get clipped by the National Facade League.
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- Last week, Palms officials received a threatening letter
from the NFL instructing them to halt their planned airing of the Super
Bowl on a supersized screen in one of the resort's movie theaters. The
broadcast of the game on a screen larger than 55 inches could constitute
an actionable violation of the league's copyright.
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- Who is the league's commissioner, Jerry Seinfeld?
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- I can almost see NFL henchmen in referee stripes marching
door to door to private-ticket Super Bowl parties, measuring television
screens by moving the first-down marker to ensure no one is in violation.
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- And if some poor soul's party screen is over the line?
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- Penalty flag on the field.
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- Cease and desist.
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- Palms General Manager Jim Hughes is trying to see the
humor in it.
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- Out of an abundance of caution, and perhaps knowing how
obsessed the NFL is with using Las Vegas as a whipping boy, the Palms canceled
its popular theater screening and scrambled to rent 125 plasma televisions
in time for kickoff. The Orleans also adjusted its party plans.
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- "We'll probably have the largest collection of plasma
TVs in Las Vegas," he says. "But the party goes on."
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- It's a personal foul typical of the NFL, whose officials
are surely aware that every major sports book in Las Vegas each year shows
the Super Bowl on enormous screens. The league already receives commercial
broadcast fees from bars and other businesses.
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- "The game has been shown on big screens as long
as I've been in town, and I got here in 1978," Hughes says. "Why,
all of a sudden, is it an issue this year? I have no clue."
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- "Intellectual property rights" aside, the league's
two-faced take on gambling is probably at the heart of the matter.
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- But that's what makes this twist ending so great: By
pumping up the Super Bowl, the league has made possible Las Vegas' most
profitable weekend of the year.
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- It's the NFL's party. They can cry if they want to.
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- And, by any measure, Las Vegas still wins.
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- John L. Smith's column appears Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday
and Sunday. E-mail him at Smith@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0295.
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- Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal, 1997 - 2003
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- http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2004/Feb-01-Sun-2004/news/23109202.html
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