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NFL is more than a made-for-TV game: Technology allows fans to get wired - for a price
(Buffalo News, The (NY) (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) Sep. 7--There has never been a better time to be an NFL devotee when it comes to following the games. On any given Sunday, a football fanatic can:
--Watch up to 13 games through DirectTV's NFL Sunday Ticket, including eight games simultaneously on one screen;
--Listen to the radio broadcasts of every game over the Internet -- with a choice of the home or road team's announcers -- via a subscription to the NFL's Field Pass feature or through Sirius Satellite Radio;
--Track games or the players of your fantasy team, practically play by play, over the Internet, on your cell phone, or the old-fashioned way -- TV and radio updates.
We've come a long way since the "Heidi" game in 1968, when NBC cut out before the end of an AFL game between the Jets and Raiders and the previously scheduled film, "Heidi," was shown instead. Furious fans were left in the dark about how the game ended, and there were no Internet or ESPN or DirecTV to keep them caught up.
CBS and Fox are free to watch, as they broadcast on advertiser-supported airwaves. And the networks are doing more than ever to try to keep our eyeballs there on Sunday afternoons, with pregame, halftime and postgame reports, screen crawls giving us scoring updates on our favorite teams or fantasy players, and complementary features on the networks' Web sites.
And network TV still rules when it comes to watching the Buffalo Bills. If you live in Western New York, you'll see this year's games on CBS, Fox or ESPN.
But fans in these parts demand more than just following the Bills. We know the other teams, their players, sometimes even their offensive tendencies on third down. If we've got a fantasy football team, we just NEED to know what's happening in that Seahawks-Raiders game -- or at least who scored.
We like to watch, but the NFL on network TV is like a steak dinner. It seems pretty satisfying until we notice our next-door neighbor gorging himself at an all-you-can buffet. That's what it feels like when your neighbor gets the NFL Sunday Ticket from DirecTV.
This football smorgasbord (which does not include the Bills' games for viewers in Western New York) is pretty appetizing, but it's not cheap. The Sunday Ticket costs $269 for the season, and another $99 to add the SuperFan package.
SuperFan subscribers this year will be able to watch live streaming video of the games over DirecTV's Web site, plus they get extra TV content, as well as audio and video highlights sent to their cell phones during the games.
The streaming online video is new this year for any NFL media partner in the U.S. The league had a deal with Yahoo last year to stream games outside of North America, for $24.99 per week, or $425 for a 17-week regular season.
That makes DirecTV's $368 price tag seem like a bargain, but it's still not affordable for everyone.
Marshall Dossinger is a 37-year-old transplanted Western New Yorker who lives in Flagstaff, Ariz. For Bills fans living out of state, the Sunday Ticket is like a lifeline to their hometown team. Dossinger subscribed to the Sunday Ticket for several years, but this year he and his wife, Emily, decided it was a luxury they could no longer afford.
"It was more my wife's decision than mine," Dossinger said by phone from Flagstaff. "We would watch Bills games religiously, but [the package] has gotten very expensive."
The Dossingers are opting instead to buy the NHL Center Ice package, which for less than $200 lets them see a whole season of NHL hockey.
"This year [Emily] gave me an ultimatum, one or the other," Dossinger said. "The Sabres were a better value, 82 games versus 16 games."
Listening online
If you're not ready to shell out a few hundred for satellite TV, getting the audio broadcasts of NFL games is an affordable alternative. The league's own Field Pass product costs $39.95 (it was $10 less if or dered during preseason). Subscribers not only can listen to every game during the season, they also have their choice of the home team or visiting team's broadcast.
Thus if the Dolphins were playing the Patriots, a subscrib er could hear Jimmy Cefalo in the Miami booth or Gil Santos and Gino Cappelletti at the New England microphone.
Another option is Sirius Satellite Radio, which costs more and provides more. In addition to carrying all of the game broadcasts (except for those of the Tennessee Titans), Sirius has channels devoted to NFL programming all week, including shows hosted by Tiki Barber, Gil Brandt, Vic Carucci, Daryl Johnston and Shannon Sharpe, among others.
Sirius costs $12.95 per month, to listen either online or through a satellite radio. But that price includes all the rest of Sirius' programming -- including dozens of music channels -- not just football.
And what would Sundays be without having another reason to check your cell phone or Blackberry?
Sprint is the NFL's "official" provider of cell phone content. Sprint's NFL Mobile is a package of features that includes video and audio highlights after the games, detailed statistical breakdowns for one's favorite team, customizable statistical reports for fantasy players, video segments from the NFL Network, and several other features.
NFL Mobile is included in the price of Sprint's Vision or Power Vision packages -- which start at $15, which is on top of the price for a phone plan, which in Western New York starts at about $30.
This year Sprint has some competition from DirecTV, whose Sunday Ticket SuperFan subscribers will be able to watch on their phone highlights of games while they are being played.
"[The mobile market] certainly is competitive," Sprint spokesman Dave Mellin said. "But we get our data directly from the NFL's database, so nobody can deliver it with the speed we can."
Watching nearly every game on DirecTV costs $368. Listening to them online is possible for $40, plus the cost to run your computer and connect to the Internet. You can fill your cell phone with NFL updates for another $60 or so (less if you get the SuperFan package on DirecTV).
It's possible to totally immerse yourself in NFL media on a Sunday afternoon. The question is, how much are you willing to pay?
"I'm still trying to talk the wife into [the NFL Sunday Ticket]," said Dossinger, the Bills fan living in Arizona. "We're still discussing it, but it's a discussion I'm expecting to lose."
gconnors@buffnews.com
To see more of The Buffalo News, N.Y., or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.buffalonews.com.
Copyright (c) 2007, The Buffalo News, N.Y.
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
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