With the Saints only playing on Sundays next season, garnering no Monday Night Football appearances to the dismay of Louisianians, Saints fans need all of the televised games they can get.
Blackouts have hindered fans from watching games before, but that may not be the case soon. State house speaker Charles DeWitt proposed a bill to the Louisiana House of Representatives to ban the blackout of “local professional football telecasts.” Yeah, that sounds like the Saints to me, and oh yeah, that thing that might come back one year — the Super Bowl.
As it stands right now, the NFL and TV networks get to blackout games when the game is not sold out within 72 hours of the game.
Just 10 days ago, the bill went to the House Appropriations Committee. Hopefully they won’t sit on this one forever. We need action. Give us our Saints on Sundays. Only time will tell if this one gets the boot or becomes a reality.
But football is full of catches, and this bill is no exception. As it stands, the blackout restriction would not apply to existing contracts but would apply to new contracts and extensions. Also, the proposed bill cannot be enacted unless four other states pass provisions similar to this one.
This is great. Now we might get to have a ritual again on Sundays to watch the Saints play. We can throw parties and sit around like bums all day waiting for the game to come on and eat our lives away. Wait! Don’t we already do that. Well, this ensures preservation of our rituals every week, or at least every home weekend.
Will this drive fans to stay at home and watch the game? I think not. Who wouldn’t rather go see a game in person, but if that is not an option, the television is a great substitute. I would pay the money to go to the games to watch the Saints play in person if I weren’t poor. I mean, TV football games are designed for those poor unfortunate souls like me that can barely afford the electricity to support watching the game.
But let’s not forget that this bill is not telling us to stay at home. The state is already under risk of losing the team with talks abounding about a possible move. Do you remember all of those talks about the Saints moving to another state? What if that neighbor state we have, the only state that would be worse to live in than this one, yeah, that one with the long name that resembles the name of that large river that runs right beside campus, what if they got our team? The team many of us were raised to root for, through thick and thin, through good and bad.
Well, do you want to see the New Orleans Saints become the Mississippi Saints or the Biloxi Saints. They probably wouldn’t keep the mascot name because it really doesn’t fit their state. They might become the Biloxi Slots or the Biloxi Aces after the wonderful attractions that the city brings — gambling. Being the Magnolia State and all, I guess they could propose to be the Mississippi Magnolias.
Or they might be too creatively disinclined to think of anything new or creative and keep the Louisiana-laden mascot like the Utah Jazz did. You know those Utah people were just hoping the coolness of New Orleans would float up to their state by keeping that name because when did you last hear of jazz being a mainstay in Utah…(silence)….that’s what I thought.
Bottom line — this bill sounds great and all, but let’s hope this one has been thought all the way through. Hopefully it will get passed, we can all watch a little Saints football on Sundays and never have to worry about them moving away.