The day that the Super Bowl moves to cable (and don't give me this "ESPN on ABC" garbage, it's still ABC Sports to me damnit) is the day that the big game is no longer relevant:
http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/09/04/pm-corner-of fice-bodenheimer/

Ryssdal: Are we ever going to see ESPN doing the Super Bowl?

Bodenheimer: I certainly wouldn't rule it out. I mean, if we'd had done this interview 15 years ago and you had asked me, "Do you see ESPN with the Masters, with the British Open, with the BCS championship, with Monday Night Football?" I probably would've given you a similar answer. So I'm ruling nothing out.

:eek: The Superbowl on cable? I hope not!

that would be an utter mess

Horrible Idea. I like it on FOX. Or whatever channel it's on now lol.

jk

t's still ABC Sports to me damnit) is the day that the big game is no longer relevant:

Fact is that the top tier cable networks (ESPN, USA, etc.) can now deliver an audience nearly equal to that of a broadcast network. The difference between the potential audiences of ESPN vs., say, corporate sibling ABC are tiny at best. And given it's high profile any viewer wanting to watch it *is* going to find it, regardless of where it airs. The Super Bowl airing on a top-tier cable channel is not a banishment to the nether-realms of TV as it would have been into the mid-late 1990s.

The Super Bowl also happens to be, in most instances, the most watched TV broadcast of the year. If your goal, particularly as a sports-themed channel, *doesn't* involve landing the Super Bowl onto your schedule then you need to be fired due to gross incompetence. It's just good business sense.

Fact is that the top tier cable networks (ESPN, USA, etc.) can now deliver an audience nearly equal to that of a broadcast network. The difference between the potential audiences of ESPN vs., say, corporate sibling ABC are tiny at best. And given it's high profile any viewer wanting to watch it *is* going to find it, regardless of where it airs. The Super Bowl airing on a top-tier cable channel is not a banishment to the nether-realms of TV as it would have been into the mid-late 1990s.

The Super Bowl also happens to be, in most instances, the most watched TV broadcast of the year. If your goal, particularly as a sports-themed channel, *doesn't* involve landing the Super Bowl onto your schedule then you need to be fired due to gross incompetence. It's just good business sense.

To try to put things in a proper perspective on why the Super Bowl being on ESPN would be a bad idea. The Super Bowl is traditionally, one of the highest rated telecasts of the year. There's a reason why in the current NFL TV contract, NBC has the rights to the early round, Wild Card playoff games (not to mention alternating in the Super Bowl rights with only CBS and FOX) instead of ESPN. It's because, the NFL wants to maximize the audience as best as possible. Even though, ESPN is currently available in over 100 million households, the bottomline is still that the biggest game of the year has always been on regular, free television. ESPN's whole MO is to get as many big events as possible so that they can justify charging the cable companies a hefty sum to carry ESPN. Look for instance, what's happening right now with Versus' feud with DirecTV.

The Superbowl shouldn't and would not ever be on Cable

ESPN should carry The Superbowl

Monday Night Football isn't even what it used to be. To me the biggest game of the week is now on Sunday Night and they usually have the best games too. The day the SB moves to cable it will slowly become irrelevant much like Boxing has become. But hey what do I know? That idiot commissioner still wants to play games in Europe and put an NFL team in London. :rolleyes:

They can't do that!

Everyone in America will have to get cable for this one!

Monday Night Football isn't even what it used to be. To me the biggest game of the week is now on Sunday Night and they usually have the best games too. The day the SB moves to cable it will slowly become irrelevant much like Boxing has become. But hey what do I know? That idiot commissioner still wants to play games in Europe and put an NFL team in London. :rolleyes:

Roger Goodell, the commissioner is already experimenting with the Pro Bowl in order to make it more "exciting". Therefore, the next one will take place a week before the Super Bowl. And instead of Hawaii, it will be in Miami, where the Super Bowl is taking place.

I just hope that Goodell doesn't make boneheaded, quick cash grab moves concerning the heavy realiance on cable TV like his counterparts. The NBA has gone down the tubes from a TV standpoint (in terms of ratings and production values) ever since they left NBC in 2002 in favor of ABC/ESPN. Not to mention the NBA All-Star Game has been really cheapened by its move to TNT (even though I feel that TNT does a much better job at covering the NBA than ABC/ESPN).

One half of the League Championship Series is know on TBS (the other half is on FOX, therefore, automatically gaining more prominence). To make matters worse, TBS won't allow local over-the-air stations (of the participating teams) to simulcast the playoff games like in the past (when ESPN had the playoffs).

And as for the NHL, they have a national TV deal with Versus, which is basically, a poor man's ESPN. In fairness to Versus, towards the end of their last run with the NHL, ESPN was really starting to put the NHL on the back burner in favor of their then, brand new NBA package. And now, as I'm typing this, Versus is unavailable on DirecTV.

ESPN should carry The Superbowl

ESPN in my humble opinion, has progressively gotten worse ever since Disney took control of it in the late '90s.

Roger Goodell is a moron. lol I've said this since day one. The decisions he's made are poor ones, for the most part. Can we get a good sports commissioner in the house (eh maybe a David Stern) :lol:? Him and Bud Selig are making Gary Bettman look good lol.

I have little respect for George Bodenheimer because he helped turn ABC Sports into the complete and utter joke that it is today. He is the biggest champion of the garbage known as "ESPN on ABC". And all that he's spouting is delusional, ultra grandiose nonsense about ESPN broadcasting a Super Bowl down the line.

ESPN was once a great channel (up until, the time that Disney came into the picture during the late 1990s). But like MTV, they started to believe their own hype. In the process, they've really lost a lot of their heart.