NFL Pulls Plug On Big-Screen Church Parties For Super Bowl
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For years, as many as 200 members of Immanuel Bible Church and their friends have gathered in the church's fellowship hall to watch the Super Bowl on its six-foot screen. The party featured hard hitting on the TV, plenty of food -- and prayer.
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(InfoWorld) - On Feb. 5, at about 7 a.m. local time, I'll be watching the Super Bowl. For those of us living in foreign lands where football means a round ball, the NFL doesn't get primetime coverage. Despite growing up as an NFL fan, when I say "football" now to anyone except my mother, I'm talking about soccer. When I watch football on any given weekend, it's the glorious exploits of my beloved Arsenal Football Club I'm enjoying, not those of the New York Giants. During almost 11 years in China, I have slowly seen those vestiges of the U.S. unavailable here in Beijing disappear. The Internet changed the way we live overseas. Letters became e-mails. Amazon.com became the Berlin Airlift to the book-deprived, with CDs and DVDs following soon after. But regular National Football League coverage was one of just two remaining treats that eluded me. That changed on Sept. 13, 2006. On that day, I discovered Ben & Jerry's ice cream at my supermarket, for about $9 per pint. That morning, I watched an NFL game, live via the Internet, in my home. NFL Enterprises embraced the Internet for the 2006-07 season. Previously the NFL did not allow webcasting of its games, except for text and graphic-based commentary such as GameCast. But this year, international fans could buy a GamePass from YahooÂ to view games live and streamed, at either $249.99 for the season, or $24.99 per week. Apple's iTunes Music Store sold season passes for fans to watch their favorite teams, uploading each game after its completion. I took a different route. I downloaded TVUplayer , which seems to be a mass re-broadcast from a Slingbox MediaÂ device in San Jose, California. There was the NFL, complete with American sportscasters and commercials ("This is our country..."). I ignored that it was 8:30 a.m. and made popcorn. I don't understand how TVUplayer is legal, but if they ever become a paid service, they can have my money. ESPN and ABC disappeared midway through the season, so I lost the Sunday and Monday night games that I used to watch on Monday and Tuesday mornings, respectively, but Sunday night remained sleepless as I watched the day games. If living overseas teaches us anything, it's that in the Internet world, content distribution and licensing methods are grossly obsolete. I would have paid to watch the NFL live years ago -- but they wouldn't take my money. Cinema and DVD release dates seem equally ludicrous when you live in a market where they're meaningless. Piracy makes a lot more sense when you realize that the guy down the street can offer you "Casino Royale" on DVD today, but Hollywood thinks you should wait eight months. Next season promises to be even better for football fans here. On Aug. 8 -- exactly one year prior to the opening of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing -- China will host to its first-ever NFL exhibition game, with the New England Patriots playing the Seattle Seahawks. But when the regular season begins about three weeks later, it will be first down and 10 on the Internet.
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Even before kickoff, the Super Bowl has its first advertising casualty - the Ford Motor Company withdrew a commercial from the game in the face of complaints.
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ABC has pulled its contract offer to the Bowl Championship Series, a move that could result in three of college football's biggest games moving to another network.
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A tradition of halftime harassment at Jets home games ended Sunday when the sale of alcohol was banned and access to the two spiral ramps at Gate D was blocked.
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Traditional big-budget Super Bowl ads are being benched for viral campaigns emphasizing web video and user-generated content. By Kendal Black.
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Loses wood over Celebrity Big Brother cock-up Aficionados of the kind of quality programming for which Channel 4 is rightly reknowned will be disappointed to learn it has pulled its planned "wank week" - a series of three late-night programmes dedicated to bashing the bishop and petting the beaver.â¦
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What's it been, something like 222 days between meaningful NFL games? What a stretch of misery, so totally demoralizing, each and every day without a pigskin party to attend.
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A dispute between the country's two biggest beer brewers has a brand-new battlefield - the Super Bowl. Late last week, with football fans by the millions gearing up for the big game, Fox Broadcasting decided not to put on the air a Miller Brewing Company ad that poked fun at Anheuser-Busch's plans for a new light beer.
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Fox Sports' coverage of the Super Bowl on Feb. 6 will be able to include pictures from miniature cameras embedded in the field, network and NFL officials said Tuesday. This is the first time such images will be available during an NFL telecast. Fox unveiled the devices, which have a lens the size of a pencil eraser, during last summer's Major League Baseball All-Star Game and used them during the playoffs and World Series.
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NEW YORK  - ABC has pulled out of  negotiations to continue airing college football's Bowl  Championship Series (BCS).
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Advertisers for this year's Super Bowl game hark back to the familiar in new commercials for TV's biggest event, dusting off celebrities from decades ago and putting childhood icons in the spotlight.
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Leave it to the NFL to reward NBC for buying into Sunday night by giving it an opener with a twist. Spend a few billion dollars and you, too, can make a family squirm.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Sanctified and churchified, the area north of downtown is paradise -- you should pardon the expression -- for spiritual wanderers. It being Super Bowl week and all, these included not only those wandering in the spirit, but also those wandering because of the spirits. Find redemption, and then find your car.
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By Matt Tullis and Dennis M . Mahon, The Columbus Dispatch, Ohio  Feb. 3--The National Football League told an Indianapolis church: Thou  shalt not allow thy congregation to watch the Super Bowl on a projection  television.
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The NFL has told news organizations that it will no longer permit them to carry online video clips lasting longer than 45 seconds.
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Advertisers at this year's Super Bowl hark back to the familiar in new commercials for TV's biggest event, dusting off celebrities from decades ago and putting childhood icons into the spotlight.