Monday Afternoon Football

[scrivener]

Well, the New Era begins tomorrow on ESPN with a preseason game between the Raiders and Vikings at 5:00 on the West Coast, 8:00 on the East Coast, and 2:00 in good ol' Hawaii.

This is significant because for the first time, Monday Night Football (the NFL's biggest weekly game) is on cable television and for the first time in Hawaii, the games will be telecast live and not via taped delay. In the past, people who wanted to see the games live could go to a local tavern, while those of us with JOBS would wait until after the local news.

No more. Now, by the time most of us get home from work, the games will be over. I don't know how to feel about this. I think I don't like it.

[timkona]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

GO RAIDERS !!

Football, anytime, is a joy. Be it Monday at 2pm on the TV or Friday at 7:30 at the local high school

Support your local football program by becoming a fan. There is no more entertaining way to spend $5 on a Friday night. The children will love it.

[Miulang]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

Well, the New Era begins tomorrow on ESPN with a preseason game between the Raiders and Vikings at 5:00 on the West Coast, 8:00 on the East Coast, and 2:00 in good ol' Hawaii.

This is significant because for the first time, Monday Night Football (the NFL's biggest weekly game) is on cable television and for the first time in Hawaii, the games will be telecast live and not via taped delay. In the past, people who wanted to see the games live could go to a local tavern, while those of us with JOBS would wait until after the local news.

No more. Now, by the time most of us get home from work, the games will be over. I don't know how to feel about this. I think I don't like it.

I don't know if they still do this on local TV or not, but I can remember watching the news at 6 on KGMB and the sportscaster saying, "if you don't want to know what the score was for the x v. y game that will be shown on tape at 8 tonight, shut your eyes, because we're going to post the scores right now" because if it was an East Coast game, it would be over by the time the Hawai'i news came on and was replayed on tape for Hawai'i audiences. That always used to crack me up.

I think this live telecast of NFL games is a Comcast/Oceanic/NFL conspiracy to get more people to buy digital cable services (with the NFL getting a cut) so fans can watch the games on tape at their convenience. Either that, or there are going to be a whole lot more TIVO units being bought at Costco!

Miulang

[Linkmeister]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

No, Miulang, the new era means no more tape delay for MNF on ABC. Can't say I really care; the last time I paid much attention to it was three or four seasons ago. I think they just got hit with really unfortunate scheduling for a while, because it seemed like very few games were anything but blowouts.

[Palolo Joe]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

The simple solution, without having to buy Oceanic's digital TV package:

BUY A VCR.

[scrivener]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

The games are four to five hours long, and I hate watching stuff that's taped at the slower record speeds. However, yes, that's clearly what I'll be doing. At least I can fast-forward over commercials and the halftime show.

[Palolo Joe]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

The games are four to five hours long, and I hate watching stuff that's taped at the slower record speeds. However, yes, that's clearly what I'll be doing. At least I can fast-forward over commercials and the halftime show.

Yeah... that's true about the slower speeds. If you've got the money (I know, I know, I'm asking a teacher), you could try a DVD recorder... I think they got a timer function so it works like a VCR.

[Surfingfarmboy]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

Well, the New Era begins tomorrow on ESPN with a preseason game between the Raiders and Vikings at 5:00 on the West Coast, 8:00 on the East Coast, and 2:00 in good ol' Hawaii.

This is significant because for the first time, Monday Night Football (the NFL's biggest weekly game) is on cable television and for the first time in Hawaii, the games will be telecast live and not via taped delay. In the past, people who wanted to see the games live could go to a local tavern, while those of us with JOBS would wait until after the local news.

The Sunday Night Game, which will be televised by NBC, is now the showcase event for the NFL.

The Monday Night Game has been demoted somewhat, as it will no longer be broadcast nationally on one of the big national over-the-airwaves television networks, i.e., ABC, CBS, NBC, or Fox, but by ESPN. In fact, the NFL is so gung-ho about the Sunday Night game being the premier football game of the week, that NBC has the right to change previously scheduled games as they see fit, in last half of the season, in order to avoid having, say, two 3-11 teams playing each other in December. They can tweek the schedule to broadcast the best possible match-up. Season ticket holders have been made aware of this...it's possible that, for instance, a 1PM game scheduled for Foxboro or Cleveland or wherever, in November, could be re-scheduled for 8PM Sunday evening, if NBC thinks that a particular game is of more significance over the game previously scheduled. There's been a lot of talk, by Patriot fans, about this on sports radio here in the Boston-Providence metro area. Most don't see it as a problem, as it means if the Patriots are being bumped up to 8PM for the Sunday night game, they will be fielding a winning team worth watching.

I'm curious if the Sunday night games will be delayed in Hawaii like the Monday Night games were. If they aren't, and with the Monday night game no longer being broadcast in Hawaii on a tape delay, a lot of guys won't have the excuse of saying they have to go watch the games live in some of those establishments on Keeaumoku St. Naw..they aren't going to those places for that....they're going there strictly to see the games live! (Right!!)

[scrivener]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

The Sunday night games, previously on ESPN and FOX, were never delayed -- we always got them live.

The NFL can say and do what it wants with the Sunday night game, but I don't think it will change the mystique of Monday Night Football. We're talking about a very long tradition of games that, while not always excellent matchups, were special because (a) they were the only games on that night, (b) they were on in prime time, and (c) there was just something special about that stage. The guys in the booth were always aware that their audience was different from the Sunday audience, and they called the game with that in mind. This led to some bad decision-making over the years (Don Meredith, Dennis Miller, and O.J. Simpson come to mind), but on the whole it made a big difference. It was Monday Night Football.

Did you know that under John Madden's leadership, the Raiders were 11-1-1 on Monday nights? That means something. Nobody's going to say, twenty years from now, that so-and-so had the best record on Sundays after 8 eastern.

On a more personal level, I just have a really hard time catching anything on TV on Sunday afternoons and evenings. Sunday is one of the busiest nights of the week for me because of the nature of my job. Monday's a different story. It always has been. I'm not here to lament the end of Monday Night Football; I just think it's a major change that I'm not sure I like.

[Surfingfarmboy]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

The Sunday night games, previously on ESPN and FOX, were never delayed -- we always got them live.

ESPN. That I know. But what Sunday night games are you talking about on Fox? ESPN had exclusive rights to Sunday evening broadcasts during the regular season. I never saw Fox broadcast any games on Sunday other than the standard East Coast 1PM and 4PM starts (7AM/11AM HST). I'm wondering about NBC's Sunday evening telecast. It's going to be such an integral part of NBC's evening line-up this fall, I'm betting it will be delayed. NBC and the NFL are going to go all out in attempt to recapture the glory and the excitement that the faded ABC Monday Night Football franchise used to create.

[scrivener]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

For a while, the Sunday prime-time games alternated weeks on ESPN and FOX. ESPN's broadcasters were Joe Theismann, Roy Firestone, and someone else. There's a chance I misremember and the other network was TBS or TNT, but I thought it was FOX, before FOX outbid CBS for the NFC's games.

[Linkmeister]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

According to the morning paper, today's MNF game will be rebroadcast at 7:00pm HST on ESPN. That's 1:00am EDT Tuesday morning, which undoubtedly would be really dead time on ESPN otherwise (how many replays of SportsCenter can they put on, after all? Don't Ask!) However, most replays of the network's big shows (Sunday Night baseball included) tend to get trimmed "due to time constraints" in order to fit into set blocks of time.

If that schedule is maintained, other than the editing, it might work out ok for the local viewer who has cable.

[Surfingfarmboy]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

So Scriv...what do you think of the announcing crew for the revamped MNF?

I like that Joe Theismann is still in the booth, but I don't think Mike Tirico is really cut out to do play-by-play. I think of him as a golf announcer. Tony Kornheiser looked totally out of place...I don't know what he is going to add to the broadcasts. I do like Kornheiser in his natural domain (debating with Wilbon on PTI), but IMO, he just doesn't seem to know THAT much about football to warrent having him in the booth doing color. To do color during a nationally broadcasted football game, I think one needs to have been at least a player on the collegiate level, or perhaps, done color for a minimum of three years, working regional games, before moving up to the national spotlight.

[Miulang]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

Having Tony Kornheiser add color on NFL football is like having Roseann take Alton Brown's place on "Iron Chef:America"!

Miulang

[timkona]

Re: Monday Afternoon Football

I did not see a listing for the replay of the game.....and I looked

I have called ESPN in New York AND Connecticut....also ABC New York and any other telephone number I could find.

We gotta get the replay at 7pm....who can watch a game at 2 in the afternoon....we all gotta work for a livin !!