NFL Teams Could Add To TV Coverage
August 15th, 2012
Now Joe knows fans are irritated because the Bucs’ first preseason game will be blacked out Friday from a live broadcast.
Joe knows there is a lot of hand-wringing about this, but clearly, the public has spoken and buying a ticket (or tickets) to a preseason game isn’t high on people’s entertainment list.
What, should the State of Florida legislature pull an ObamaCare stunt and tax citizens a hundred dollars a year in order to pay for tickets to ensure sellouts? If people don’t want to go, they don’t want to go. It’s (allegedly) a free country.
This doesn’t mean the Bucs couldn’t someday be on TV more in the future.
Cricket-watching, scone-loathing Peter King of Sports Illustrated typed a piece yesterday where he mentioned that the high interest in the “look-ins” of team training camps broadcast last month on the NFL Network proved to be so popular, it has caught the eye of the NFL owners.
PEOPLE WOULD WATCH. “I would love to see NFL teams start to televise their training camps. The Pats have been averaging over 10,000 fans per practice this year. I know most teams don’t have that kind of following on a daily basis, but it seems to me that there’s an unmet need there. I’ve seen some coverage, but it’s been dominated by the Tebow and Manning shows. From a purist’s prospective, I would probably tune in occasionally just to see how my rookies, star free agents and previously injured players are doing. Not to mention that there might be a Fantasy Football draw as well.”
— From Ray, of Southboro, Mass.The NFL has proven that it could televise anything and get ratings. As I’ve gone from camp to camp, I’ve noticed quite a few camps televised lived on NFL Network. Don’t think the league’s not thinking about it.
Yes, this could work. Joe would guess that Bucs fans would much rather watch a Bucs training camp practice than that glorified track meet known as the NFL Combine.
It’s actually a beautiful mix of needs and wants. Bucs fans would want to watch, all NFL owners want to make a shekel or two, and there are broadcast companies dying for content in the late summer.
Two years ago, the NFL Network-hostile Bright House Networks, which continues to hold local football fans hostage by denying them the greatest channel known to man while shoving every friggin’ shopping channel down consumers throats, broadcast live from the Bucs’ night practice but it was all interviews the entire night, no shots of the actual practice, likely because the cable outfit didn’t have the rights to broadcast the actual practice on the field.
Yesterday, Joe spoke with a prominent employee of Bright House Sports Network, who said the outfit is thirsty for content and programming this time of the year. There are only so many CFL, KHL and taped high school sports to regurgitate for 24 hours a day.
Same with Fox Sports Florida/Sun Sports. Outside of baseball, there is only so much fishing and poker playing that can be broadcast. Joe seems to recall Sun Sports broadcasting a controlled scrimmage from the Orange Bowl years ago between the Bucs and Dolphins, if memory serves.
The way the NFL continues to grow and grow and grow and grow, it wouldn’t shock Joe one iota if next year, a local cable network would secure the rights to broadcast Bucs training camp practices that are open to the public, and for the hundreds of thousands of fans that cannot take off work to come out to practice, they can DVR the broadcast for viewing later in the day.
It really makes too much cents sense for this to happen.
August 15th, 2012 at 8:18 am
Weeeeelp. Guess we know how Joe is voting. Obamacare/football. I can see the connection….
August 15th, 2012 at 8:22 am
Always got to make your bullsh!t political digs don’t you joe?
How many political references are in the archives of this website? Maybe seven or eight out of 11,000 posts. That hardly qualifies as “always.” But Joe does appreciate your hyperbole. –Joe
August 15th, 2012 at 8:22 am
Traffic must be sluggish.
Actually traffic for August is up about 25 percent on last August and not sluggish in the least. Thanks for caring. –Joe
August 15th, 2012 at 8:36 am
Please leave the politics out of the stuff you guy write. Football is about the only place we can avoid, so let’s try.
That little dig ruined the whole damn article for me, and I didn’t finish it.
If that kind of thing keeps up, I’m outta here for good.
You’ve been warned.
So you’re saying if Joe is writing something and a political analogy flows from his brain to his fingers, Joe should censor it to be politically correct? Joe’s made less than 10 political analogies/comments in roughly 11,000 Bucs posts since 2008, if that’s widly inappropriate, well, then Joe’s an inappropriate guy. –Joe
August 15th, 2012 at 8:42 am
Get the politics out of here. I’m here for football not ignorant political commentary.
August 15th, 2012 at 8:43 am
And joe I’ve been called you on your BS political digs many, many times. Don’t pretend you don’t.
August 15th, 2012 at 8:45 am
No Joe, they should do a GWB stunt and run football in to the ground and lose teams left and right…..OR do a Romney stunt and tax citizens 300.00 dollars per year for football….LMAO
August 15th, 2012 at 8:48 am
Joe
“You’ve been warned!” Ooooh, bet your boots are shaking now Joe?!
Too f’n funny!
Note to posters:
This is JOES SITE! His hard work and effort = his content and context! Whatever he wants to use as analogy is fine by me!
August 15th, 2012 at 8:48 am
Meh:
Specify “many.”
August 15th, 2012 at 8:50 am
kaput
Don’t let the ObamaCare hit you in the a$$ on the way out!
August 15th, 2012 at 8:53 am
lol @ oar…Obama is in the process of saving this country from ruin thanks to your greedy politicians…. #obamacare
August 15th, 2012 at 8:54 am
Can we stop with the politics now? It only shows people’s stupidity… unless of course they agree with me, which then makes them sages.
August 15th, 2012 at 8:55 am
Create a website that is dependent on internet hits, and then offend half of the viewers by injecting politics into sports. That sounds like a great idea!!
And now, since it’s been pointed out that it’s offensive and in bad taste, people commenting on the story are bashing one another.
Sure sounds like a wonderful business model to me.
Create JoePoliticsFan.com or some other site and the flame away, but please keep it away from the reason this site exists int he first place – the Buccaneers.
@Kaput, understand that Joe isn’t worried about offending anyone. When Joe started this site, Joe was told he couldn’t survive being constantly critical of other media outlets. Joe was told his third-person shtick was so annoying it would never work. When Joe has made a few political references a year at most, each time Joe has been told he’s an idiot and will lose half his readers. Joe also was told he was far too negative about the Bucs and alienating real fans while the Bucs were in the midst of winning three out of 20 games from December 2008 through July 2010. Joe realy doesn’t pay attention to those who dislike Joe’s style. Again, if Joe feels like making a political reference a few times a year, Joe’s not going to censor himself. If there are negative consequences, so be it. –Joe
August 15th, 2012 at 8:55 am
hey maybe Romney can De-regulate the banks again ! that works so well last time…
August 15th, 2012 at 9:04 am
It’s not the site butt the Tools who use it.
Joe, if you continue on this path of destruction I’m going to have to take another sip of my fresh ground Colombian coffee ,take another bite of my eggs and turkey bacon and keep reading. Sorry , but it needed to be said. You’ve been warned.
August 15th, 2012 at 9:06 am
Many = over and over and over
Sorry, Meh, that’s just not accurate by any stretch. –Joe
August 15th, 2012 at 9:43 am
Actually, Joe has a good point on televising practices. I am a big fan this year of Hard Knocks-Miami. Its got excitement, intrigue, scandal, moral lessons and hot women.
Last night, we were given a lesson in life from the head coach who lost his 21 year old son during the Packer’s playoff run last year. His wife then had to attend to the Eagles coach’s wife because Any Reid’s son died suddenly.
We learned about the struggles of a young wide receiver nick-named 7-11 because he’s always open but in the game was never thrown to even though he was wide open for an easy TD.
We learned about a young small college basketball player who ran a 4.3 at a public tryout camp who is struggling to learn football on the fly. He is outworking and outplaying the 3rd round selection but in the game was virtually ignored while his competition dropped throw after throw. There are touching moments between #87 and his beautiful young girlfriend.
Then there is a classic battle brewing for starting QB. David Garrarde, Matt Moore, a young QB (with out a shot) and Tannehill. DG went down with a knee, Matt Moore is pressing, and Tannehill is winning lights out.
It is spiced up brilliantly by the addition of Tannehill’s young, blonde, beautiful angel of a wife. On a scale of 1-10, this girl is a 12.
Then there is the scandal of Ochocinco who impresses everyone with his work ethic, but disappoints struggling in practices and in the game. The coach admonishes him for dropping F bombs in a press conference. Then when his young beautiful wife catches him with a receipt for condoms he head butts her putting her into the hospital and himself into jail. We then get a front row seat to a first class firing.
What’s not to like? Mix in your favorite team, access to rookie hazings, dramatic cuts, extremely hot cheerleaders and instant success. Might help to sell a few tickets. Joe is right on the money with this.
August 15th, 2012 at 10:05 am
Joe
You should keep that number for the wah-mbulance handy, cause you’ve got a few men down, again!
August 15th, 2012 at 10:30 am
If I could stream Bucs training camp to my phone while I was at work I would love it.
August 15th, 2012 at 10:56 am
How did you all get your panties all in a bunch? I know politics is the most F’n frustrating subject known to man, but lighten up. Joe made a political pun that you don’t necessarily agree with. Get over it. I bet if that pun were for a different political candidate there wouldn’t even be this discussion.
August 15th, 2012 at 11:00 am
But back to the article. I would most definitely watch Bucs training camp if it were on TV. I’ve been hitting all the Buccaneer websites hard (heh) during training camp, trying to get all the nuggets of info I can. So being able to watch the whole camp would be amazing, I’m all for it.
August 15th, 2012 at 12:21 pm
Would I love to see Underwood catch passes in training camp? Lewis actually perform so I know why hes still on the roster? Freemen make stupid mistakes after his 100th rep?
Absolutely. I’d even watch commercials and the whole shebang.
However, would the other 31 teams scouts in the league also like to watch the tape from the comfort of their couches?
Absolutely.
I know theres always a certain level of espionage going on at public practices, but why give 31 other teams freebies on players that might not make the team this year but we want to sneak to our practice squad for next year?
It might be a mitigating point if you forced all 32 teams to do it, as the playing field evened out on espionage, but besides that it might hurt the Bucs even though I would love to watch.
August 15th, 2012 at 12:33 pm
there’s one big negative to televising– which is the same problem with charging admission to training camp (see: Snyder, Daniel): that is privacy/confidentiality. If the team charges then they must allow other teams to send scouts. If they televise there is the same issue plus anyone with a DVR then would have access to all of the stuff that the team is working on. Teams like the Bucs who have been fairly quiet about their schemes don’t want other teams to see their practice sessions.
The ‘Skins tried charging for training camp a few years ago and abandoned it.
August 15th, 2012 at 12:38 pm
TampaRob:
Well, first, as Joe pointed out, the televised practices would be only for “open” practices. Teams don’t charge for those.
As for the Bucs not wanting other teams to mine information, Joe assumes you are not aware that NFL teams send scouts to all “open” practices. Besides, the NFL Network already broadcast live Bucs training camp (and many other teams as well) from two open practices this year. Not like this has never been done before.
August 15th, 2012 at 12:39 pm
“So you’re saying if Joe is writing something and a political analogy flows from his brain to his fingers, Joe should censor it to be politically correct? Joe’s made less than 10 political analogies/comments in roughly 11,000 Bucs posts since 2008, if that’s widly inappropriate, well, then Joe’s an inappropriate guy. –Joe”
Analogy is the wrong word, since analogies make a logical connection between things. Old white guy Joe, we know how you’re gonna vote, it’s cool. Let’s just talk football and avoid looking uneducated, shall we?
August 15th, 2012 at 2:29 pm
If saying something about the government taxing us to death with Obamacare, etc. pisses you off then by all means let me be one of the ones to add to your irritation. Obama is the worst president in the history of the country. There. Have a nice day!
August 15th, 2012 at 3:54 pm
Thanks for the clarification Joe.. I thought the league prohibited opposing scouts at open practices as long as the team didn’t charge for admission.
I was also trying to post a comment that had nothing to do with politics 🙂
August 15th, 2012 at 4:24 pm
@ dAVE “Let’s just talk football and avoid looking uneducated, shall we?”
You ruined your chance with that post….
August 15th, 2012 at 4:30 pm
bobby…your clueless ! #Obama!
August 15th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
This is Joe’s site and he can post what he wants. Joe knows the Bucs and he does a great job covering them. Joe however, does not know healthcare reform. For the purposes of the article it doesn’t really matter because it was used humorously (I think). But for the sake of clarity, Obamacare is not imposing a tax, they are imposing a penalty. Taxes you can’t avoid but penalties you can. You only get penalized if you can afford insurance BUT you still decide not to pay for it. Why do you get penalized? Because the rest of us shouldn’t get stuck paying for your healthcare.
August 15th, 2012 at 4:36 pm
I think the masses have spoken. Leave politics – either way – out of football talk.
August 15th, 2012 at 6:03 pm
it would be nice to know if both “joes”, s****n and l**, agree with this. who is “joe” and who is “admin”? either way, it is learned now by pushing this hot-button topic that it will get an arousal and increase comment/traffic. they need increased hits to increase the traffic/value of the site. just my opinion of course.
August 15th, 2012 at 6:25 pm
Joe here,
@Lurker, as Joe wrote earlier in this thread. Traffic for August is up about 25 percent on last August and not sluggish in the least. Joe doesn’t need “increased hits.” And think about that for a minute, how is a post with a headline “NFL Teams Could Add To TV Coverage” some sort or plot to increase traffic? That makes no sense. If Joe were looking to drive traffic, he could run with all sorts of unsourced stories, rumors and more. This isn’t what this site has ever been about.
Second, which “Joe” is which commenter is and should be meaningless. In fact, who’s who isn’t always static. A teeny, tiny fraction of 1 percent of readers actually comment. And most don’t even read the comments. Same is true on any website like this.
August 15th, 2012 at 6:39 pm
“What, should the State of Florida legislature pull an ObamaCare stunt and tax citizens a hundred dollars a year in order to pay for tickets to ensure sellouts? If people don’t want to go, they don’t want to go. It’s (allegedly) a free country.”
-JOE
“No Blackouts , Good Idea!!!! BUT, I think we should lower taxes on season ticket holders. Then we lower taxes on corporate box owners even more! To make up for it, we’ll just cut food stamps for kids, cut underpaid teacher’s salaries, and raise taxes on working poor! (they are all liberals anyway…….just like facts and history.”
-Mitt Romney, GW Bush, Cheney and every other Republican in Washington
August 15th, 2012 at 6:40 pm
I hate BLACKouts!!!!!!!!!!!
August 15th, 2012 at 6:43 pm
Glad I can help keep traffic up! Keep up the good work. 1 out of 1,000 political analogies ain’t so bad, and it’s fun to get outraged, so thanks again Joe!
Are you really JOE the Buc Fan or Joe the Plumber? I’ve been wondering what happened to him.
August 15th, 2012 at 6:53 pm
I ain’t no Bucs fan feller…… I like baseball. WHITE Sox if ya’ll must noe!
Don’t let the government get involed with the footballs, next thang ya’s know, they gonna take away yours guns before you get into all them purty stadiums that the true ‘merican heros, the job creators done did built for us all.
August 15th, 2012 at 7:01 pm
Football is exactly like private health insurance….. which thanks to Obama, we all will have to purchase 🙁
At a football game, you buy beer. About $9? Great deal! That’s your premium. You buy one each quarter, maybe more if your thirsty. You pay $9,$9,$9,$9,$9,$9,$9,$9,$9,$9. Then, in 4th quarter, when you’re really hot and thirsty and never needed a beer more in your life, the concession stand tells you that there is NO MORE BEER for you. 🙁 Too bad. Just hurry up and leave the stadium (or die, whatever is more convenient for you Mr. customer).
August 15th, 2012 at 7:04 pm
Forgot to mention, EVERYWHERE in the world, beer is much cheaper than in football stadiums. Unless you have a BOX seat, then it’s free. Ironic isn’t it?
August 15th, 2012 at 8:47 pm
Joe says:
“…if Joe feels like making a political reference a few times a year, Joe’s not going to censor himself. If there are negative consequences, so be it. –Joe”
If you continue to make those comments few and far between, there won’t BE any true negative consequences, and I believe you know that.
“So you’re saying if Joe is writing something and a political analogy flows from his brain to his fingers, Joe should censor it to be politically correct?”
No, Steve, you should know as well as anyone that being politically correct is one of the most absurd things to have happened in the last quarter-century. You should “censor” yourself because politics is bad for (this) business. End of story.
Joe says:
“…understand that Joe isn’t worried about offending anyone.”
If everyone left, you would most certainly worry about it. This site has become, obvious to some of us, a money-maker. If you were no longer able to impress potential clients with impressive traffic numbers, they would’t find the opportunity to do business with you as attractive, which would affect your pocketbook.
Please understand, I LOVE JBF!! I’m here almost every day. (As you likely already know.) JBF has become one of THE sites to bookmark if you’re a Bucs fan. (Or, seemingly, a Bucs hater, as well.) But please don’t expect me to believe that you don’t “self-censor” every day. It’s what successful adults and successful business-people do.
August 15th, 2012 at 9:22 pm
Piratic:
If Joe was concerned about p!ssing people off, he wouldn’t have launched this site four years ago. Joe now has 90,000+ pairs of eyeballs coming to this site every month, the size of a small newspaper.
Joe thinks the greatest appeal he has is to say what he thinks; from the heart.
Thanks for your loyalty, man.
August 15th, 2012 at 9:25 pm
Joe here,
@Piratic – Joe knows it’s hard to believe, but Joe doesn’t sit around plotting and planning stories to drive traffic to satisfy advertisers. Frankly, Joe’s advertising is so far below market value when compared to traditional media sites, that Joe could lose half his traffic and all the advertisers here would still be happy.
Sure, Joe “self-censors.” Joe keeps a PG-rated site. Joe doesn’t run with 99 percent of rumors. Joe doesn’t play TMZ (and Joe’s got a pile of fantastic TMZ-type stuff to work with.) Joe largely sticks to AP style, and Joe has a code of ethics he adheres to, etc. But when it comes to the content, Joe really doesn’t sit around concerned about offending anyone, or pissing off readers.
August 16th, 2012 at 12:05 am
so joes,
you are running a site with no intent to increase readership or value in said site? hard to believe. my understanding is that one/both saw an opportunity from working at the trib that there was an increase in interest in buccaneers’ articles versus others. so the idea was birthed and partly taken from a defunt “joe” website from the northeast. perhaps i am wrong on the intention or the history.
perhaps one or both could tell the history of joebucsfan. i am interested. i cannot find a search or archive to be able to look if this has been covered or not.
ps i do think it matters which “joe” has certain feelings on certain subsects, such as politics. especially, since one brought it up into the equation here and in other articles.
thanks
August 16th, 2012 at 12:24 am
Joe here,
@lurker – Joe NEVER wrote or implied that Joe doesn’t try to increase readership or value in JoeBucsFan.com. Not sure how you concocted that.
Clearly, Joe markets his website via cross-promotional partnerships with Clear Channel Radio, Ch. 10 and USA Today Digital Media, for example. Joe also promotes via social media and in other ways. Obviously, Joe markets his business and cares about traffic. What Joe explained was that Joe doesn’t make Bucs content decisions with business and revenue in mind.
Again, you’ve made that wild leap on your own.
As for the history of JoeBucsFan.com, you are correct. Joe saw the hunger for Bucs news in TBO.com data as a staff member of the Tribune, and over time Joe crafted his unique plan out of the spirit of a defunct site called JoeNetsFan.com.
Regarding which Joe is writing what, if Joe was trying to promote himself personally, then his names would be all over the site. Celebrity is not the goal around here. One day there will be more Joes, or new Joes.
August 16th, 2012 at 3:24 am
joe,
thanks for the history lesson.
also, I wasn’t talking about bucs’ content per se, but hot-button content in general, political content particularly.. it is not a wild leap to see what drives more views/hits/whatever on the site and use it more often.. just as in the past when starting the site when you saw bucs’ content got more views.
anyways, good job on the site and on the radio this evening/morning, or to the other joe if it was.
August 16th, 2012 at 8:29 am
Joe here,
@lurker – A political analogy buried in a football post clearly is not an attempt to drive views. Joe doesn’t get how you and others think it was/is? How exactly would new readers be drawn to read a supposedly hot-button line? It is a very wild leap to think that a political reference is an attempt to driver readers or interest. In fact, Joe would suspect a large majority of readers would be shocked by the traffic patters here, and what’s popular and what’s not. Now if there was political commentary in the headline or a picture of a political figure, then sure, that would an attempt to drive traffic.
August 16th, 2012 at 11:48 am
@joe,
you are right that as readers we are at a disadvantage/ignorant of your traffic patterns. since you state that your political references are few and far between, when it occurs, it is shocking. why, because politics as well as religion are usually verboten in workplaces, bars, etc because they are hot-button topics. these topics usually break down into arguing and diminished capacity of reasoning, even amongst friends and family. a reasonable assumption as to why it occured was made by a few posters.
anyways, just trying to explain why i would state what i did. thanks for your time.
movving on.