National Sports Journalism Center

Blame my background in blogging.

But rather than choose between writing about the hazards of recording sports on my TiVo, the NFL’s ongoing insistence on enforcing blackouts of poorly-selling games and the possible employment of fired ESPN analyst Steve Phillips, I decided to try writing about them all at once – foolishly disregarding the first commandment of column writing, save all the good ideas you can.

First the issue of NFL blackouts. This is something that has vexed fans for a while, as even league officials have predicted they could rack up five times as many blackouts this year compared to 2008 — thanks to the enforcement of a rule prohibiting TV outlets from showing games that haven’t sold out 72 hours prior to the contest.

Jacksonville’s Jaguars in particular have struggled under these rules, as the sagging team has seen season tickets drop by thousands, and the NFL has waived the 72-hour rule for many teams, making avoiding blackouts easier.

But an interesting story Saturday in Multichannel News revealed what those of us who have tried writing about this have long suspected. The trade magazine reported that ESPN and Cleveland Fox affiliate WJW-TV chipped in to buy up tickets for the Browns game Monday against the Baltimore Ravens, to make sure the lucrative TV broadcast goes on.

With NFL viewership reaching record highs, this only makes sense – especially for Monday Night Football, which has emerged as one of cable TV’s highest-rated programs this season.

But it also gives the lie to notions that the NFL has insisted on sticking to its blackout rule to push fans into attending home games. Especially since some fans might be less likely to try attending home games if they’re constantly sold out.

This is mostly about pushing money into the pockets of the league, forcing TV outlets to figure out ways to keep the games on the air, so they can make their money and the community – which may be struggling in recessionary times – can actually watch their hometown team play (the league does allow each team to give away 17,000 tickets a season as well, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

One thing is for sure: as long as TV outlets keep ponying up cash to keep NFL games on the air, the league has no incentive to find an alternative to a rule that knocks games off the air at a time when TV viewership of football is setting records.

Next, TiVo and sports. Fans live with the agony of long-running games and how they can screw up TV schedules as a necessary evil.

If you’ve been using your handy digital video recorder to keep up with important games, you’re probably already in the habit of telling the unit to record the program after the game, or even a couple of programs after, just to make sure you don’t miss an important play.

But then I heard about CBS’ Eye-Lert, a special service set up to notify viewers by email when prime time programs will be disrupted and what the new schedule will be when they know it.

Which led to a natural question: How come this doesn’t automatically change the DVRs, too?

George Schweitzer, president of marketing for CBS, said the technology doesn’t work that fast. Yet.

TiVo, one of the best-known DVRs, downloads its programming schedule daily very early in the morning. Which makes sending an update at midday tough to coordinate, Schweitzer said.

Also the companies that actually provide the scheduling data to TiVo and other machines need longer lead times to handle scheduling changes. I found, working on a similar story last year, that one such company wasn’t aware NBC had lengthened the running time of its adventure drama Heroes by one minute until I pointed it out months later.

I know TV outlets would rather fans watched games live. But in the age of follow-you-anywhere television, making it tougher for people to watch sports the way they want hardly seems the way of the future.

If CBS can let fans know on Friday that there may be a football overrun, why can’t DVRs be alerted, too?

Finally, I come to Steve Phillips, the baseball analyst who was fired by ESPN last month after his affair with a 22-year-old production staffer became a national scandal.

The New York Daily News quoted Phillips’ agent saying the analyst – who also had to take a leave from his job at general manager of the New York Mets following an infidelity scandal – was talking to another TV outlet about employment while getting treatment for sex addiction.

Given how many shots the sports world takes for sexism and the way women are treated, does it really make sense to have a guy with Phillips’ difficulties already become the subject of comeback talk?

Surely there are enough analysts out there that a guy whose problems inspired late-night comedy routines can take a rest. If only so the sports broadcasting world doesn’t quite look like the chummy boys club its critics say it is.

Eric Deggans is TV and Media Critic for the St. Petersburg Times and a 1990 graduate of the Indiana University School of Journalism. His work has also appeared in the Washington Post, Village Voice, VIBE magazine, Chicago Tribune, Detroit Free Press, Chicago Sun-Times and many other publications. He also writes a blog on media, The Feed, at blogs.tampabay.com/media.