Tonya and PQBON's WebLog

NFL screws make a wish

NFL won't allow live showing of game

Here is a summary: Little girl gets a make a wish wish. Her amazing wish is that all the other Terminally ill kids in her area get their wishes instead. Everyone is incredible moved by this and decide to throw a huge city wide bash, including the showing of a live NFL game. NFL asserts their "rights" and says the city can't do that... "...the NFL has a strict policy against showing live broadcasts to create a public event." Now, the NFL could have decided that this one case is OK, because it was for the make a wish foundation, or they could have decided that the state, whose own team was playing, had some latitude, because this is after all for charity. No, instead the respond with broken logic:

"All the professional sports leagues and the NCAA are very protective of their TV rights, and as more entities were wanting to show (the Panthers game) in a public forum, (the NFL) started to recognize that if they give one exception, they would have to give everyone an exception," McCrory said.

Which simply isn't true. As the holder of a copyright or patent or another intellectual property you have the right to do what you want with it. The NFL could decide that only certain bars, bars whose name starts with the same letter as one of the teams playing could show a game in a public setting. They could do that. They could choose to let the make a wish foundation and the city of Charlotte have an exception with out granting ANY other exceptions ever. That is their right as the copyright holder of the NFL games (watch a foot ball game on TV, the NFL maintains control of TV viewing of games by copyrighting them).

So now the city is changing the plans and is having a pre-game party/rally. I would guess this will be much less effective then the original plans, much less money will be raised and the make a wish kids are the ones that get screwed.

God bless the NFL, get bless them in their stupid asses. (Apologies to Kevin Smith for stealing and modifying a line from his great movie Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back which should read, "...fuck them, fuck them in their stupid asses...")

Posted by pqbon at January 12, 2004 1:26 PM | TrackBack