FCC Rejects Blackout Rules 135
Today the Federal Communications Commission eliminated its sport blackout rules, which prevented cable and satellite television providers from showing sporting events that were blacked out on a local station. It's common practice in the NFL to black out football games locally if the stadium didn't sell enough tickets. The ruling now removes government protections for the NFL's policies (the NFL can continue to black out local broadcasts). The FCC's decision is based on "significant changes" to the industry over the 40 years since the rules were adopted. Television has replaced ticket sales as the primary source of revenue, and the NFL is incredibly popular. They also don't think there's any chance the NFL will move its games to pay-per-view.
Going Cable! (Score:5, Insightful)
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Help me out here - those of you who live where
Re:Going Cable! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Going Cable! (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it a question of worth watching or of worth watching in a stadium for $XXX? I'll never understand why someone pays that kind of money to sit in bad seats in the cold, wet etc. when they should be able to watch it from home. It's hard to fathom that ticket sales are worth more than TV rights any more. IMHO, all blackouts do is punish the fans who weren't going to buy a ticket anyway.
People spend $$$ because it's a social event for most people who enjoy sports. Getting there early, setting up the BBQ, handing out with existing or new friends, talking about the sport team, etc... On top of that, it's a much more engaging when you are actually experiencing the event. Much like a live concert is a completely different experience than listening to it on Palladium.
Re:Going Cable! (Score:5, Interesting)
Better looking and younger chicks at the college game day celebrations!! That and you don't have to go through something resembling TSA airport security like you do with the NFL these days more and more.
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You actually GO to games and concerts IN PERSON? Even though you can watch it all on a smart phone, TV, or laptop? Let me guess, you also GO to the cinema also, even though you could just download the torrent. I guess I'll just never get "people" people.
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The rest of the time we watch movies is via streaming service or Redbox (automated physical DVD rental kiosks).
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Yea, ain't no smartphone, tv, or laptop coming with 50,000w of beat-your-ears-in sound system.
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I'd venture a guess the reason why is that you don't need 50k watts when the speaker is about an inch from your eardrum.
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My 5w headphones capable of shaking themselves off my head to Young Bleed's 'How Ya Do Dat' still aren't fucking loud enough for my pleasure.
And I stand next to 4kW stacks daily.
Still have nearly-perfect hearing, minus the really odd gap at 15kHz-16kHz (about 1.3kHz lower than the mosquito buzz frequency, which I can plainly hear at the age of 32.)
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Still have nearly-perfect hearing, minus the really odd gap at 15kHz-16kHz ...
Not odd at all. Were you exposed to CRT TVs or old monitors for an extended amount of time? Their flybacks operated at one of several freqs: NTSC is 15,734 Hz, PAL is equal to 15,625 Hz, PAL M is equal to 15,750 Hz [4hv.org] I wondered if TV/monitor technology was getting better over the years - the flyback scream got quieter and quieter as I got older. Turns out my ears were losing their sensitivity to it. I have a gigantic notch at those
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Ooooh, good fucking point. You're right on that. I had HUGE CRTs (82 born) for over half of my life (I only ditched my 21" Trinitron 7 years ago and went LCD, so 25 out of 32 years of my life I've been exposed to CRT flyback scream.)
But, I can still 'hear/feel' it. I don't think I've lost that hearing totally, but there's definitely a sensitivity gap in that range.
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In the last few years I've gone to games and I've watched on TV. I'd never pay sticker price to go to a game again- TV is a MUCH better experience. No weather, no annoying asshole standing up in front of you, better food, better priced food and drink, instant replays, etc. If you're watching sports (rather than participating) its just better all around on TV. I'm more engaged at home.
Funnily enough, I'd rather go to a concert. That's an experience. Sports in person don't do it for me, even if I like
Re:Going Cable! (Score:4, Informative)
The Packers had games blocked out? You've got to be kidding, every one of the home games was on the Milwaukee station. The average wait for season tickets is 30 years: http://www.packers.com/fan-zon... [packers.com] See bottom of page. I think a playoff game might not have sold out due to some refund policy, but that was an aberration. The 3 biggest religions in Wisconsin are Lutheran, Catholic, and the Green Bay Packers and I'm pretty sure I have them reversed.
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The Packers used to play a couple of home games every season in the old Milwaukee County Stadium. They haven't done that since the '90s (and County Stadium was razed in 2000) but Milwaukee is still considered part of the Packers home media market.
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I don't follow football though some years ago I had opportunity to be in a press box high above 50 yd line. Very different than seeing it on TV, you can see how the play is set up and made. Where on TV the camera focuses on the ball so you miss peripheral details. What caught my attention is on hike, team with the ball had three guys acting like they had the ball (only one obviously did). It didn't fool opposing team but they still had to pay attention to those two other guys. And when they throw the ball,
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Wouldn't it be the stinkers that have to be propped up by rules like this?
The stinkers need to earn money to buy better players to become non-stinkers. So policies that hurt the stinkers, mean they will stink even more, and the NFL will become less competitive. Personally, I couldn't care less about the competitiveness of the NFL. The government should not be propping up their business model.
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I live in New Orleans...and it has only been in recent years (not this year apparently) that the Saints were anything but a losing team.
For decades...fans filled the stands, wearing bags over their heads, but still..they were loyal and came to see the games. I know some games were blacked out in th
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Re:Going Cable! (Score:4, Insightful)
I live in a city with a good team with a decent fan base -- BUT we usually hear on the local news about the looming blackout threat most weekends.
Personally, I'm like 'Fine, whatever... no better way to lose MORE fans than by preventing your local supporters from seeing the game'.
Plus, maybe I'm a cheapo, but I consider the tickets, parking, food, etc. just too d-mn expensive to make it worth seeing it live. If they made the games more affordable for a family, maybe they'd have better luck filling seats.
[As an aside, I'm a bit disillusioned with the NFL these days, especially protecting some crapastic people like Rice & Peterson among others, so I don't really care if the NFL struggles or not]
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If it means anything, I am in agreement with how d-mn expensive it has become to watch the games live hence why I just don't go anymore.
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Here are some actual numbers about costs to attend a game:
NFL Tickets: Team by Team Average Prices
http://blog.tiqiq.com/2013/08/... [tiqiq.com]
Team Marketing Report â Sept. 2014 [PDF]
https://www.teammarketing.com/... [teammarketing.com]
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You must be in Atlanta.
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I like NOT paying for cable MORE than I like any
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As for whether fans would follow their games onto cable, in the cases that they don't already have cable or satellite, I'm sure that's a
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If someone is a fan and doesn't have cable.Sat. then they aren't going to get it because of this ruling.
The NFL needs to wake up and start selling streaming packages to whomever ants them.
I know a lot of fans would would pay for that service, but since it's not offered, then end up going through UK sites.
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We can all settle down now people, Serenissima isn't affected AND he felt like he had to let us know.
I can sleep easy tonight.
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The reason I posted is because the people of the Slashdot community are probably more than likely also going to be the people with know-how to cut ties to cable while still being able to watch the content they want to watch. Out of this community, of the people who enjoy football, I was curious to see what their response would be if football did
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The only thing that can stop the NFL and the misplaced US hero worship is their own greed.
Greed??? Why sir, I'll have you know that the NFL *always* provided local viewers with plenty of reasonably-priced $4,000 skybox tickets as an alternative to being blacked-out. It was quite charitable of them!
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First, you should know that club sections and luxury seating has been exempt from the sellout/backout rules for, well, ever. The portion of tickets reserved for the visiting team are also excluded from the sellout/blackout rule. Teams themselves can buy their own tickets at $0.34 on the dollar to stay on TV as well. [And those 34% tickets are profit shared with other teams...]
Regardless, only a couple of teams struggle with blackouts. I think the Bills have it the worst.
As to options, NFL.com has been s
Re: Going Cable! (Score:2)
eh, the NFL will probably just headbutt the FCC in the bridge of the nose during a 'roid rage and forget about it next week.
Re:Goes to show (Score:4, Insightful)
If they didn't regulate anything, you'd be eating toxic food, driving cars which burst into flames, and using products which are outright dangerous.
Only a moron would believe that without regulations corporations wouldn't just screw consumers every chance they get.
But, hey, I hear you can probably buy some cheap baby formula from China which has melamine in it ... I'm sure it will only make you a little sick.
The 'free market' doesn't exist, and doesn't solve problems like this.
You're an idiot, who only dimly understands the world around you.
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"If they didn't regulate anything, you'd be eating toxic food, driving cars which burst into flames, and using products which are outright dangerous."
Not me. I wouldn't buy that food or those cars. Instead, I would have depend on a company's reputation and their fear of the courts. I wonder if you really think that all food was toxic before the FDA existed.
"Only a moron would believe that without regulations corporations wouldn't just screw consumers every chance they get."
Sort of like the moron that thinks
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My kingdom for a mod point.
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Actually I have mod points at the moment. But instead of modding him down, I answered. Yes, I'm naive, and in hindsight regret throwing 'moron' back at him. I'm really interested in the discussion.
Now the parent of AC, Noah, made a silly statement about all regulation or something, but just because I take AC to task, doesn't mean I agree with Noah. Noah, you sounded like you meant all regulation. Meat packing houses? No inspections? Not even a drive-by? A letter asking the estimated amount of rat feces in t
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The Somalia trope is usually trotted out. This deliberately conflates the government's legitimate function of protecting the rights of individuals, protection of property and enforcement of contracts, with the counterproductive creation of regulations, monopolies and participation as a player and referee in the private domain.
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So no, two corporate billionaires selling to individuals is nothing like a viable market.
Note too that he was a proponent of strong regulation and an opponent of corporate charte
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I'm willing to tolerate a little bit of government if it means I don't have to conduct my own testing of every food item, car, or baby toy that I buy. No I don't trust the free market enough... I know damn well that reputation vs. cost savings is a balancing act to maximize profits. I expect no more and no less from a corporation; that is what they are designed to do. It is essentially government regulation that give corporations the framework to exist at all.
If a company can deny, spin, cover-up, and p
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"I would have depend on a company's reputation and their fear of the courts"
hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah..
Except without regulations companies would just buy their way out of the courts. Oh wait...
you said "cure all" (Score:3, Insightful)
no one said gov't regulation was a "cure-all" for anything!
YOU said that...
everyone not an anarchist is in favor of government regulation, whether their rhetoric matches their functional beliefs or not
it's merely a question of **what kind of regulation**...there is no debate about the inherent existence of government regulation...yes libertards/GOP'ers use that language, but when they **vote** their actions don't match their rhetoric...they vote to give government money but no accountability because of corr
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I know I am feeding a troll, but well, think of the children (who may be reading this).
Noah Haders stated his opinion is that the government shouldn't try to regulate things "they only dimly understand", but with the inclusion of saying the words "I am from the government" are "the most dangerous words in the english language", revealed his true view is that ALL regulation is bad.
The AC responded with examples of things where, without some regulation, the population would suffer. Without regulation we wou
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Regulation is why the country is so stable. Yes it has ups and downs, but nothing compared to other countries that don't have regulation, or enforcement there of.
"I am from the government"
the most dangerous words in the English language are "I am from the government"
These NFL regulations made sense initially, but should have ended a decade age.
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True. Somalia doesn't regulate their cricket matches, which makes the game absolutely incomprehensible.
About damn time (Score:1)
The comfort of a big screen and my own snacks is all I need.
Pay-per-View (Score:1)
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You can watch European soccer online.
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Re:Online Sports Network (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why soccer (European football) is so much better to watch. No commercials. The game plays until the time runs out.
Instead of a 1 hour game of football (American), it runs to well over twice that amount, not including the pre and post pontifications.
Here's the way pro football works. Flip the coin to decide who kicks off. Go to commercial. Come back from commercial and have kick off. Four seconds elapse then play is ended. Go to commercial.
Have first three plays of game. Go to commercial. Punt ball away or get second series. Rinse and repeat.
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Exactly why American Football never appealed to me, even as a child. That and most sportscasters and commentary are obnoxious. Can't stand commentary continuously announced over any event.
Online Sports Network (Score:1)
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You can watch MLB [mlb.com], NHL [indemand.com], or NBA [nba.com], if you don't mind paying for it.
I suspect that all of these sports have the same rules (which I know MLB has) that you cannot watch your local team live over the Internet...you must watch them on local TV (either OTA or the regional sports network).
Note that this means that if you live in Chicago and buy the MLB.tv package because you are a fan of the Cleveland Indians, you will not be able to watch over the Internet when Cleveland visits either Chicago team, or vice-versa. In some years, that would mean that out of 162 games, as many as
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Yeah. There's a pending class action lawsuit over MLB.tv's restrictions: http://ballparkdigest.com/2014... [ballparkdigest.com]. I'm curious whether the FCC rule change might have any bearing on the case, but I get the impression that it won't.
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NHL GameCenter. $160/season. All devices.
http://gamecenter.nhl.com/nhlg... [nhl.com]
Don't think they will move to a pay-per-view model (Score:1)
Chairman Tom Wheeler (Score:2)
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Regardless... this is actually a Good Thing(TM) for those who watch sports.
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Perhaps. Remains to be seen what the long term effect is. What happens when the NFL is "forced" to go cable only. Or worse, shows games on an uber-expensive channel/package a la Sunday Ticket. Is it better to require fans to purchase cable tv or an "NFL package" to watch the team that their tax money often goes towards?
Slashdot news for Nerds (Score:5, Funny)
Wait, Why is there a story about football on a site that is news for nerds? Move it to the News for Jocks site.... Wait, can they read?
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Because just look at the boring, almost empty submission queue [slashdot.org].
Re:Slashdot news for Nerds (Score:5, Insightful)
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". Discussing legal ramifications of a regulatory change seems pretty nerdy to me." /. is the worse place to discuss it because there are no experts here, and most people haven't even read the FCC ruling itself.
ANd there are a lot of site that specialize in law that are discussing it.
"Discussing legal ramifications of a regulatory change"
I don't think people spouting off their incorrect interpretation of the ruling and having no legal background actually count as a discussion so much as it is angry wankery
"
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Well... (Score:1)
So nothing happened? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:So nothing happened? (Score:5, Insightful)
I guess this means that the NFL can still blackout the games but they can't say "Don't be mad at us! The big, bad government made us do it." In other words, they can blackout games but they will be the ones in the fans scream at.
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Blacking out games has always been the NFL's idea, but it use to be even worse. With the original policy, all games in the home market were blacked out, even playoffs and championship/superbowl games. When teams first started broadcasting all their games, there was a very large drop in attendance as a result, hence the "need" from the teams/NFLs point of view for the blackout rule.
It wasn't until Washington was denied viewers in 1972 and Washington's politicians missed watching their team that things chang
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It means if it's broadcast in non blackout area, the cable/sat can play it in the local area. here, the doc. explains better than I:
The Federal Communications Commission today repealed its sports blackout rules, which prohibited cable and satellite operators from airing any sports event that had been blacked out on a local broadcast station. The action removes Commission protection of the NFL’s current private blackout policy, which requires local broadcast stations to black out a game if a te
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What about baseball? (Score:5, Interesting)
Major League Baseball has one of the most draconian and bizarre blackout policies even conceived - and it's not mentioned in that document at all. So I am wondering how a ruling about the NFL's policies is being interpreted as "FCC rejects blackout rules".
Oh, and MLB also has an exemption from the Sherman Antitrust Act.
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Yep. You can't get local games on MLB.tv. EVEN THOUGH YOU'RE PAYING FOR IT!!!!
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Well, you *can* get the radio version live. And you *can* watch the local game after a certain time has passed (one hour after the game is over?) But no, you can't watch them live.
Still pretty obnoxious, though.
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Major League Baseball has one of the most draconian and bizarre blackout policies even conceived - and it's not mentioned in that document at all. So I am wondering how a ruling about the NFL's policies is being interpreted as "FCC rejects blackout rules".
Uh, perhaps because the two parties in question here are the FCC and the NFL?
If I read about a lawsuit surrounding Toyota recalls, I don't expect to find Chevrolet in the discussion just because they are also an automaker.
I'm sure if the NFL policy changes dramatically, the MLB fans will try and table their policy too. Perhaps it's a bit different of a priority when you're talking about 140+ games compared to sixteen.
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Uh, perhaps because the two parties in question here are the FCC and the NFL?
If I read about a lawsuit surrounding Toyota recalls, I don't expect to find Chevrolet in the discussion just because they are also an automaker.
But in your hypothetical case you also wouldn't expect the story to refer to all "automotive" recalls - you'd expect it to say "Toyota".
The lede from this story says "Today the Federal Communications Commission eliminated its sport blackout rules, which prevented cable and satellite television providers from showing sporting events that were blacked out on a local station". But the FCC hasn't eliminated all blackout rules... only the ones specifically pertinent to the NFL.
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Major League Baseball has one of the most draconian and bizarre blackout policies even conceived
There's nothing bizarre about it...MLB wants you to watch games on the network that pays them the most money. In order from most to least:
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People who aren't baseball fans may not be familiar with this, so I refer them to the maps of the various teams' "home regions" that determine whether you can watch a team or not [wikipedia.org].
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Wow, someone at the MLB must really hate Iowa.
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All the major sports leagues have an exemption. It's nothing new.
I assume the blackout protection expires for all sports, not just the NFL. But the NFL is the current big and bad (not just headline wise; we're also in the middle of the regular season when blackouts are most likely to happen), so they get the mention.
Blackouts are from the idiots guide to marketting. (Score:5, Insightful)
I know boss, lets prevent people from watching the games.
But won't that mean we'll have less fans in the long run?
No, we figure our team is just going to lose and we don't want anyone to see it
Genius! Black out the game!
Pay Per View (Score:5, Insightful)
"They also don't think there's any chance the NFL will move its games to pay-per-view."
ROTFLMAO.
What are they smoking? The NFL will go PPV, ASAP.
Book it.
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"They also don't think there's any chance the NFL will move its games to pay-per-view."
ROTFLMAO.
What are they smoking? The NFL will go PPV, ASAP.
Book it.
And as soon as they do, the rest of America will cancel the cable bundles they only pay out the nose for because of the live sports channels, where PPV fees are the straw that breaks the camel's back. The entire cable industry will collapse overnight, and the vacuum in the ISP market will be filled by startups and municipalities with gigabit fiber and competitive pricing. Then the under-served talent in America will finally be productive and solve global warming, and all the polar bears will have yachts a
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Sure the NFL will go PPV. And the networks will replace NFL with MLS.
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Pay per view sounds good to me; they pay me and I'll watch it!
Next Step (Score:2)
Can the FCC eliminate broadcasting professional and collegiate sports entirely?
Fuck that shit, and fuck having to pay for 8 dedicated channels of it on my cable subscription when I don't watch that fucking shit.
Fuck beta (Score:2)
I dunno...I still live on classic, and I don't expect to leave, but popping into beta for a second it's starting to seem pretty usable. It's not without issues (why do I even have a moderate button if I don't have mod points), but I can do what I came here for.
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Just out of curiosity, can you see if anyone has replied to or used mod points on your own posts on your post history page? That was a big sticking point for me. It kills the discussion if you can't easily tell that someone's attempting to discuss things with you.
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The NFL is incredibly popular because this world is full of stupid fucktards
Wow.
I take it nothing you do in your life could ever be viewed as "stupid" by anyone then. Good luck with that. You gotta be one of the coolest nerds that ever lived.