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Bowl Games Disappointment

usedto

usedto

Lunatic Member
So wifey and I have an uneventful New Year's Eve, I get up bright and early this morning, have breakfast, take myself and the pooch on our daily walk out in the farm fields, then grab the sports section and head out to my office for a day of college bowl games on TV while I work on the books. Flip to the TV Broadcast page and find......... one friggin' game. WTF??

We're on an antenna here, and I'm too tight to pay the bastards $89 a month to watch most of the crud on cable or satellite, since there has always been a good representation of pro and college sports on regular broadcast. I guess those days are gone.

NASCAR started doing that a few years back - the first part of the season was telecast on regular TV, but the last half was strictly ESPN or the NASCAR channel. Now, all of a sudden, they're crying because no one goes to the races any more, and can't figure out why! I can tell you. I live within driving distance to two NASCAR courses - Infineon, and the one in the LA area. But I'll guarantee you I'll NEVER go to one of the races after pulling this kind of crap. I used to like to watch the races on TV. No more. And I won't support their advertisers, either.

Well, it looks like college football had gone the same way. I've always known football was a big cash cow for the universities, but I enjoy it, and that's that. And, even though I know that my tax dollars either go directly or indirectly to partially fund college sports, I didn't mind as long as I got to at least see some of it, but this really sucks. One game today, one next Friday. As far as I can tell, the BSC Championship game isn't even telecast on regular TV.

At least there's reruns of Two And A Half Men. :sigh:
 
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Not one BCS game on regular over the air TV. All of 'em are on ESPN. I hate that damn network.
 
The only game that matters is the Rose Bowl today.

I too am getting pissed off that a lot of the games are going to cable channels. I think the NFL, too, is making a big mistake with the Thursday night games being only on the NFL network. Mark my words, the NFL wants ALL games to eventually be on their own network.
 
Well if you have high speed internet in your home, you can watch a lot of college games on ESPN3.com, for free.

As for ESPN the network, I like it. They have built something that works. I can not say the same about Fox Sports Network. That looks like a low budget PBS presentation...

I dumped cable because the only thing worth watching was ESPN, but, with ESPN3.com, I get my college football fix.
 
not that it changes anything, but ESPN is ABC Sports, and has been for a very long time. I didn't realize that all but one New Years Day college football games were only available on cable till I read this thread. Yet another example of our traditions being taken from us, repackaged, and sold back to us. It's pay per view without calling it that.
 
I'm on an antenna here, too, and did not get to see either Michigan or Michigan State get their butts kicked today on TV. I refuse to pay the price for cable when 85% is crap and the other 15% of really good programming is so chock full of commercials that I just get annoyed and turn the set off anyway.

GEEZ, listen to how cranky I am ... and I'm only 34! :)
 
New Years Day use to be fun

I agree with all, very pissed off with no college bowl games on the so called big 3 networks. That was a ritual to get together with friends or lay back on the couch and watch football on New Years Day. Damn if I will pay to watch TV. Then because of it all they stretch the games for over a week! :thumbsdn:
 
bentpencil said:
...NASCAR started doing that a few years back - the first part of the season was telecast on regular TV, but the last half was strictly ESPN or the NASCAR channel. Now, all of a sudden, they're crying because no one goes to the races any more, and can't figure out why! I can tell you. I live within driving distance to two NASCAR courses - Infineon, and the one in the LA area...
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My sentiments exactly. Heard the other day TV viewers are down 20% for NASCAR. No doubt to me a result of having almost all of the races after June on TNT or ESPN. I think there were three broadcast on ABC. Limits viewers to cable/satellite only, and they wonder why. I've lost a lot of my interest in it. I went to NASCAR races at Texas Motor Speedway in 2004 and 2005, what I consider the heyday before moving more and more races off of broadcast TV.
 
kneeOhFight said:
not that it changes anything, but ESPN is ABC Sports, and has been for a very long time. I didn't realize that all but one New Years Day college football games were only available on cable till I read this thread. Yet another example of our traditions being taken from us, repackaged, and sold back to us. It's pay per view without calling it that.
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While regrettable, you are sounding pretty entitled there. I was unaware that it is your right to get free college football piped into your home.

With declining big TV networks and the fact that over 80% of US households have access to pay TV, this seems like a natural progression to me. Those of us without pay TV are a significant minority, I certainly don't expect my needs to be catered to just because I'm a nice guy.

While we are on the topic -- there's clearly a shift going on right now -- away from the traditional broadcast networks and towards streaming TV and on demand technologies. Its clearly the next step and its coming whether you like it or not. Get used to it -- the internet and TV will become one.

I'm watching the Rose Bowl right now, online of course.

dew.
 
I know what you mean. I have Dish network here, so I get the games, but was shocked looking at the schedule this morning that only one was OTA. I figured there would be some pretty PO'd people. This is a shame. I think the writing's on the wall, though; aren't something like 90% of TVs in the US getting their programming via cable or satellite now? I think that's the only reason the digital switchover went as smoothly as it did.

I see dew beat me to this (not sure of that %, but it's very high), and I'm afraid he's right about the continuing shift - I hate watching TV on a computer; it seems to be getting better, but saturating Internet bandwidth with video of live events seems a waste.

You might check out the lowest tier of service from Dish, DirecTV or cable. I think you may be able to get ESPN (but probably not their other channels) for much less than $89/mo, or even $50. It still isn't free, though.

I've been using Dish Network since the late '90s and our costs have crept up from about $30 toward $90/mo as we crept up thru various programming tiers and added features, and I don't watch that much TV, but do like College FB, International Soccer, and some programming. No movie channels yet, but now on the highest tier with HD and a 2-channel HD DVR.

I'm so spoiled by the DVR, though, that it's hard to go back now - especially for football. Set up to record at the beginning of the game, then start watching the recording later; skip thru the commercials and the halftime yak-yak, and it's also possible to skip thru the dead time between plays if you're far enough behind - just avoid finding out the score "live". Amazingly, it's possible to record 3 channels at once (2 sat and one OTA ) while watching two already-recorded shows on two different TVs (the second TV is fed SD, but otherwise everything can be HD if necessary and desired) - all at the same time. My wife records a lot of cooking shows and Jeopardy, then plays them back while eating lunch or folding laundry or other tedious task; she sometimes watches those while I'm recording one or two games at a time, while watching an earlier one in another room. I think maybe once or twice we've watched two things while recording three. It does work!
 
dew042 said:
While regrettable, you are sounding pretty entitled there. I was unaware that it is your right to get free college football piped into your home.
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I will give you that. Now, they need a little box to check on my tax return that lets me opt out of ANY of my tax dollars going to any school sports agenda that gets telecast on TV for pay. Then, I'll be happy.:thmbsp:
 
DC said:
I'm on an antenna here, too, and did not get to see either Michigan or Michigan State get their butts kicked today on TV. I refuse to pay the price for cable when 85% is crap and the other 15% of really good programming is so chock full of commercials that I just get annoyed and turn the set off anyway.

GEEZ, listen to how cranky I am ... and I'm only 34! :)
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I share your disappointment, though I have a few more years under my belt that I can use as justification for my crankiness. Considering the poor quality of much of the cable programming that I've seen at friends' homes, I'm disinclined to shell out $50+ per month just to see a few football games on ESPN.
 
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