I'll comment about the Browns season a little later. For now...
One of my favorite guys to jeer from the cheap seats is Nick Saban. I've long thought he was the second coming of Butch Davis, and got a perverse enjoyment out of the fawning treatment he's gotten from sports-writers. Now, with Saban perhaps on the verge of ditching the Dolphins to go to Alabama, it's clear that Saban has out-Butched Butch in his duplicious nature. Whether he takes the job or not, Saban has quite obviously been proven to be a brazen liar regardng his interest in the job. And it's only suprising that it's happening about a year sooner than I would have expected. So Saban go leave and be basically blacklisted form the NFL, or stay and be continually tortured in the no-credibility situation he's created for himself.
The shooting death of Darent Williams sucks bad. But I'm in no position to comment on that... the only thing I can observe is that stuff like this is not complimentary to NFL players. Williams sounds like he was a good guy. He was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Etc. But it's not a good situation when players socialize at parties where other party-goers are packing heat. It's a different world than what I live in, but still... ah whatever...
Since the Browns are clearly on the verge of losing an entire generation of fans, I suggest they follow the example of Mark Cuban in this respect:
For the Mavs, its also important to realize that we cant raise ticket prices forever without pricing ourselves out of the market. In fact, we lowered the price of all tickets in our upper bowl and created a TWO DOLLAR ($2) ticket for 10 of our games. Fans can get 10 games for 20 bucks. That lowering ticket prices is the most powerful, least expensive marketing we can do. It leads to a more positive brand value and committment to the Mavs, which helps us create new products that leverage the live nature of our product.
This is so simple I don't get why teams don't do this. They get most of their revenue from TV contracts and merchandising. Yet they do little to build long-term relationships with fans. And they constantly crap all over in-stadium fans, everythiing from not showing controversial replays, to not showing good stats, to raping people to buy a beer. In fact, the Browns biggest asset is the passion of the fans and they are still living off the glory of the old Dawg Pound even though it essentially no longer exists and the team has done everything possible to tamp out passion from the fans who buy tickets, often by pricing and selling tickets to people who aren't even passionate enough to show up. Even if the team nearly gave the damn tickets away, wouldn't making sure CBS was full of super-loud, crazy fans increase the value of the team in the marketplace? Wouldn't more people watch the games? Keep your club levels and loges, but in the rest of the stadium the most important thing to the Browns should be that cheering fans are actually present during games. It's the biggest selling point for the team right now.
Let's hear it for the near-death of the NFL Network. OK, maybe I am premature here, but it seems to me that the NFL Network has been a big huge dud in 2006. I don't get it so I'm biased here. But I am an avid football fan and when games were broadcast on the NFL Network it was almost as if the game wasn't taking place AT ALL. Seriously, on multiple occasions I didn't even realize a game had been played until I saw the score later. Add to that the downright stupid tactics of the league it trying to bullhead its way onto cable outlets and in the process making lots of enemies and aggravating the crap out of NFL fans. The NFL tells me I should call my cable company -- why? I already know it's because the NFL wants a premium license fee. And I already know that I don't want to pay more for my cable package. And I know that the NFL is doing itself harm by putting games on the NFL Network where vastly fewer people can watch them. It's a matter of time before the network goes down or the games are broadcast elsewhere. Oh yeah -- the times when the NFL Network was offered as a "free preview" on Cox Cable and I did watch a game -- I was flat out amazed by the crappy broadcast and by the high percentage of commercials that were for... other shows on the NFL Network. It was like a freaking infomercial. Just terrible. Even TMQ this week harps on that. The NFL Network should go back to offering all-access reports and 24/7 coverage. And rebroadcasting old games and such. If it's not a top 50 cable station then so what -- it can still make money, and the NFL can make a boatload in broadcast rights elsewhere.
Monday Night Football on ESPN. A joke. The games were bad, but the broadcasts were worse. Especially the habit of bringing celbrities into the booth. Half the time the celebrity didn't say anything. The other times they talked about crap unrelated to the game. It was painful to watch. But I watch it on Mute most of the time anyway...
TMQ observes that Buffalo, Green Bay, San Francisco and Tennessee all started the season poorly. Just like the Browns. But they all finished strong and have hope. What do the Browns have? I have some hope. But I have to because I have no choice.
Major props to ESPN for the
"Boss Button" on TMQ. I've been copy+pasting TMQ into Notepad for 4-5 years now. Finally, it's unnecessary.