Gridiron League is a beautiful re-imagining of NFL team logos by Wes Kull. Even though I loathe the Patriots, that’s one tight execution.

No Fucking Love

I’m a football fan. Let me be more specific: I’m a Denver Broncos fan. Always have been. I don’t like to watch any other teams of any other sports. Does it bother me that we lost every decent starter that we had and fired the head coach that led us to back-to-back Superbowls? No. What bothers me is that I can’t watch my team suck because I live on the east coast.

Why not? I mean, there’s no shortage of interest in non-local team broadcasts, but unless the game is in a special time slot (Sunday, Monday or Thursday night) I have virtually no chance of seeing the game live. In an age of iTunes downloads and Netflix streaming I cannot pay the NFL to watch a game that I want to see. This is stupid.

Ok, that’s not 100% correct. If you have DirectTV and purchase the NFL Sunday Ticket you can get all the games. But I have a TiVo, which:

  1. Does not work with DirectTV
  2. You would have to pry from my cold, dead hands

But here’s the fucked up part: even if I had DirectTV I would still have to pay for Sunday Ticket, which is priced at a staggering TWO-HUNDRED AND FORTY-NINE DOLLARS. Look, I’m a Broncos fan, but even I wouldn’t pay upwards of $15 a game. This is slimy licensing at its worst.

The other solution is to drive down to the local sports bar and try and convince the bartender to put my game on a 20 year-old 13” Sanyo that’s 100 feet away. But really, that’s not even the bad part. The bad part is having to be around other fans. Any not even regular fans. Drunk Redskins fans.

Ugh.

So what’s the problem here? There’s no technical reason I can’t get my games. It’s 2009. Last season NBC was showcasing a website that was simulcasting alongside the Sunday night game from 5 different camera angles. The math here is not difficult:

  • The NFL likes money. A lot
  • The NFL is already capable of streaming games. Which is shocking
  • I like the Broncos, whom I am willing to pay a reasonable amount of money to see

Can’t we come up with a fair solution here? How about this. $5 a game or $50 for one teams’ entire season. Hell, I’ll even watch it online.

So come on NFL, show us some love. You get more money and I get to watch every gut-wrenching, eye-rolling, high school-level fuck-up that the Broncos stumble though this year. Everybody wins.