This news article says it all.....

Posted on Fri, Jan. 30, 2004

By Ray Buck

Star-Telegram Staff Writer

HOUSTON - Super Bowl XXXVIII arrives in your living room in liquid-crystal, high-definition, around-the-clock, around-the-globe, nonstop imaging.

This is the technology that drives the fans that drives the league that drives sports.

And keeps the National Football League head and shoulder pads above all other sports.

After 82 years, the NFL has never been more entertaining, more innovative, more fiscally sound or more popular than it is today.

The day has come that commissioner Paul Tagliabue can present the Lombardi Trophy in multiple languages, in front of live audiences from Boston to Beijing, simultaneously ... on different days.

But also in the NFL's not-too-distant future are digital cable and ways to access the greatest moments in NFL history with the ease of ordering a Big Mac.

You want to watch Franco Harris and the Immaculate Reception?

Alan Ameche and the 1958 sudden death championship game?

Just kick back in your favorite recliner and press the on-command button. That technology is coming.

Tagliabue will re-examine the potentials of television, radio and the Internet between now and 2005, when the NFL's television contract expires, to find "all the alternatives again" to keep the NFL ahead.

By comparison, the three other major team sports are locked in neutral.

Or worse, as in the case of Major League Baseball and the National Hockey League. Their hope for a remedy is to copy the NFL model. But those leagues' tardiness has been costly.

The NHL is on the verge of committing professional suicide by locking out its players next season if a new collective bargaining agreement cannot be reached. It's the latest attempt by NHL owners to achieve revenue sharing and impose a ceiling on players' salaries -- goals the NFL had fulfilled by the early 1990s.

Baseball finally implemented some revenue sharing in 2002, but only after nearly killing the sport. Can anyone say: Look what happened to baseball in 1994?

The National Basketball Association implemented a hard salary cap and revenue sharing in 1999.

But those changes are merely NFL Lite.

The NFL's biggest advantage is still that each owner, from Green Bay to New York, is promised an equal share of all network TV revenue.

And it is the NFL's lucrative and foresighted relationship with television that has elevated it to the King of Sports.

The Super Bowl is practically a religion in this country.

A religion created and followed by a TV audience.

Last year's Super Bowl -- Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Oakland Raiders -- drew 138.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched program in TV history, according to Nielsen TV Ratings.

In a recent ESPN survey to determine America's favorite sport, 22.5 percent of the respondents named the NFL, followed by Major League Baseball (12.9 percent), NBA (9.6), college football (7.1), college basketball (4.6), NHL (3.8) and NASCAR (3.4).

The NFL is America's favorite because it has become the ultimate made-for-TV event.

The NFL's current eight-year, $17.6 billion TV contract remains the biggest television deal in team-sport history, only to be superseded by the next one.

With the contract with the networks due to expire after the 2005 season, Tagliabue has said, "We'll look at all the alternatives again, including the state of digital cable."

Expect the next TV contract to increase somewhere between what the NFL wants -- a 6 percent or 7 percent hike -- and what the TV networks are willing to give -- 2 percent or 3 percent.

Talks are expected to begin this spring with Fox, CBS, ABC and ESPN on an individual basis, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said.

"It's a question of where television is going, which nobody really knows," he said. "We know what's out there. It's just a matter of waiting to see what shape [the new contract] takes. There's no way to predict."

One thing is certain. For free viewing on Sundays to continue, Fox, CBS, ABC and ESPN must meet the NFL's demands.

Because the networks are no longer the only suitors, the league holds the hammer because it attracts fans, which attracts advertisers, which drives business.

"All we know," Aiello said, "is that we deliver the biggest audience in sports and entertainment on a consistent basis."

And the followers want more.

In November, the NFL launched its own NFL Network -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year -- then went on to set a regular-season attendance record by drawing nearly 17 million fans. The NFL Network can be seen on satellite and will become available in Fort Worth over Charter Cable Communications in February.

Also to be refined are the use of satellite television, high definition, on-command viewing and NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV.

"NFL Sunday Ticket on DirecTV is now exclusive," Aiello said. "But our exclusivity ends in a couple of years, and then we can take that to the cable systems. In other words, at some point, NFL Sunday Ticket may be available to a much wider audience."

The NFL's first television deal was for $600,000, paid by NBC to the league to broadcast the 1961 NFL Championship Game, and its first multinetwork contract came after the NFL-AFL merger in 1969. That four-year TV contract (1970-73) was for $185 million, or $7.1 million per team.

That ka-ching, ka-ching you hear is the sound of prosperity in the NFL.

The cost for a 30-second advertisement to be aired during the Super Bowl is $2.3 million, or roughly the cost of a $77,000 luxury car each second.

This is roughly a 150 percent increase over the price of a 30-second Super Bowl spot just 10 years ago ($900,000).

It's no wonder that Sean McManus, president of CBS Sports, calls Super Sunday "the biggest day in all of television."

The closer the game is in the fourth quarter, he said, the more "the [TV] rating is bulletproof."

This year's Super Bowl will begin at 5:25 p.m. and be broadcast by CBS (Channel 11 in Dallas-Fort Worth), whose turn it is in the three-network rotation to broadcast the game.

"With Survivor to follow the Super Bowl," McManus said, "this Sunday will generate for CBS more revenue in one day than any one day in the history of television."

McManus predicts a $160 million, one-day windfall for CBS. Super Bowl XXXVIII will be broadcast to 229 countries and territories -- from Antarctica to Zimbabwe -- in 21 languages, including the first live broadcast of the Super Bowl back to China by a CCTV team that has spent the week in Houston.

Kickoff is at 7:25 a.m. Monday, Beijing time.

In all, there will be on-site broadcasting of the game by 14 foreign television and radio crews back to their countries, including a German team led by former Cowboys and Oilers kicker Toni Fritsch, now an NFL analyst.

"We were the first to broadcast the Super Bowl in the German language. That was 10 years ago," said Fritsch, a native Austrian who splits his time between homes in Houston and Vienna.

Fritsch's broadcast of Super Bowl XXXVIII will begin at 25 minutes after midnight, Vienna time.

He expects 100,000 German viewers will stay up late to watch the New England Patriots vs. the Carolina Panthers, without the least bit of concern that these two teams are without many household names even here in the United States.

The NFL phenomenon is alive and well around the world ... and in Houston.

Nothing says NFL prosperity quite like the Super Bowl.

The site of Super Bowl XXXVIII (if you hadn't noticed) is Houston.

The same Houston that lost its NFL franchise after the 1996 season when then-Oilers owner Bud Adams accepted a sweetheart deal to move his team to Nashville, Tenn.

That move was met by a resounding "good riddance" from jilted Houston fans, although their venom was directed at an unpopular owner, not the Oilers and certainly not the NFL.

Now fast-forward seven years: This week's stampede into Houston for activities surrounding the big game Sunday has produced countless parties, celebrity sightings and $300 million to $500 million in Super Bowl-driven spending.

In a matter of six years, Houston has gone from NFL ghost town to Super Bowl host city.

The reasons behind Houston's remarkable transformation are twofold:

Power and money.

The NFL's power ... and Houston billionaire Bob McNair's money.

The Oilers leaving "was a real shock ... a wake-up call," said McNair, who spent $700 million to bring the NFL back to Houston in 2002. His expansion Houston Texans just completed their second season.

Asked if he ever thought about spending his millions anywhere else but the NFL, McNair replied, "Not really. The NFL offers the best opportunity for a businessman ... not only to have some fun but to have success."

"Two things attracted me to the NFL," he said. "No. 1, we [NFL owners] share in all television revenue. And No. 2, we have some cost-containment [salary cap] in place, which is good because player salaries can get out of whack."

The NFL phenomenon is alive and well in Houston ... and around the world.

Other professional leagues are simply trying to catch up.

A look at the NFL's television contracts and the average player-salary during the term of each contract:

�?In 1960-61, NBC paid $600,000 for broadcast rights to the NFL championship game.

�?In 1969, the NFL-AFL merger led to first multi-network contracts (CBS, NBC, ABC) in time for the '70 season.

�?In 2005, the current contract will expire. Already, the posturing has begun: The NFL looking for a six or seven percent increase; the networks willing to consider a two or three percent increase.

http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/7834097.htm

The NFL made nearly $5 billion dollars in television revenue alone last year.

And it is the NFL's lucrative and foresighted relationship with television that has elevated it to the King of Sports.

i know and that is why i raised the question even though i already knew i wanted others to think about it

Hey.....it remained on topic and expressed the view you was going for with this thread.