Networking: NFL vs MLB

We interrupt the ususal screeds about the new Administration and the war in Gaza to talk about sports. (After all, the New York Jets’ most recent end-of-season collapse “merited” a New York Times Op-Ed column from Bob Herbert.)

Personally, I am more partial to football than baseball. Much has been written and said about the differences between baseball and football as a sport—that best explained, of course, by George Carlin; and, as a business—particularly how the NFL’s brand of “socialism” has made it the most financially viable of all the major sports leagues, and how baseball has spectacularly failed in maintaining any level of profitability. (Although, in the current economic climate, this may hardly be grounds for strident criticism.)

Still, all you have to do to truly understand why the NFL is much more effective and profitable as a business than MLB is just to look at the two sports’ respective commissioners over the past 35 years.

NFL: Pete Rozelle, Paul Tagliabue, Roger Goodell. All very effective.

MLB: Bowie Kuhn. Peter Ueberroth. Bart Giammatti. Fay Vincent. Bud Selig. Uebberroth was competent, but he only lasted four years; Giamatti could have become one of the all time greats if not for his untimely demise. Kuhn and Vincent were nothing to write home about, and Selig is the equivalent of a fox guarding a henhouse.

So I find it bizarre that in marketing legacies, baseball outdoes football.

At first glance, this isn’t necessarily so surprising. Professional baseball has much deeper historical roots in this country and its early years are much better documented and have a much larger treasure trove of available primary sources. Even baseball’s records from before what is considered the “modern” era—i.e., the American League beginning play in 1901—are very extensive. Football, is of more recent vintage; it really developed from the college game (which it did not truly overtake in popularity until the 1960’s) and the earliest incarnations of the professional game were so anarchic that in many cases record keeping would have been moot. The two sports’ respective Halls Of Fame are illustrative of all of this (although, walking through the “Shrine” at Baseball’s Hall Of Fame and looking at the brass plaques of the inductees, I wondered at times whether I was at a memorial chapel).

That disparity, owing to historical forces, makes perfect sense. What I don’t understand is how the MLB has outdone the NFL legacywise ion the one thing the NFL has always excelled at: marketing. One can see these processes sports’ cable TV networks and the editing and marketing of both sports’ vintage games on DVD’s.

The shenanigans surrounding the NFL Network and the cable companies do not bear repeating; suffice it to say, I have premium cable and MLB Network—but no NFL. Additionally, it seems that MLB Network programs a greater variety of classic games and makes it a larger part of programming than the NFL does.

Ostensibly, from the NFL’s standpoint, this may be in no small part due to the existence of an extensive underground of trading of game broadcasts; the NFL has always been extremely protective of its product. Yet the NFL seems to be following the lead of the RIAA and shooting itself in the foot by restricting its viewers and its viewings.

Furthermore, I have an extensive collection of both MLB and NFL vintage DVD releases. To date, MLB has released numerous sets of games, including close to 15 complete World Series; the NFL has released a comparable number of “Classic Games”, including collections from about 10 teams’ “Greatest Games”, and entire playoff runs of the Super Bowl winning teams from most of the past 10 seasons (with the exception of the New England Patriots; it currently is assembling a compendium of almost all the playoff and Super Bowl games from their 2001, 2003 and 2004 Championship seasons in one 10-disc set).

The MLB games do not undergo nearly the kind of surgery that NFL games do. That may be owing to the nature of both games (in football, editing huddles sometimes makes sense; in baseball, editing waiting periods between pitches would obviously destroy the pace of the games); but the way the NFL games are edited sometimes introduces jumps that compromises the flow of the game.

But what really bothers me is the way most of the NFL DVD’s end: extremely abruptly, with no scenes of celebration, let alone post-game extras. It might be too much too ask to include commercials on some of the Super Bowl broadcasts; but no pre-game shows or post-game interviews? The NFL recently released the Raiders’ three Super Bowl victories. I watched Super Bowl XVIII as it happened; I was in eighth grade. I can understand not necessarily wanting to include Barry Manilow singing the National Anthem; but not to include the coin toss with Bronko Nagurski? And no post-game Al Davis’ “Just win, baby” and President Reagan’s crack about Marcus Allen and the Russians?

Who’s doing the editing?