There are 2 NFL games on Christmas Day. One are the Steelers, a team I've followed since I was a kid.

I'm not getting into the politics of the NFL, or whether or not they should be playing on Christmas.

What's got me pissed is that the games are only on Netflix. The exception is that they are broadcast over the air in the team's cities (Pittsburgh, Kansas City, Baltimore, and Houston) per NFL requirements. I don't have Netflix, so no game for me.

Now, this is certainly not the end of the world. But I am also looking at my DirecTV biil, that is $154. Basically 5 bucks a day for mostly garbage.

Once upon a time all the NFL games were free on broadcast TV. Then Thursday Night Football came along, which required cable. Now it requires Amazon Prime. Then Monday Night Football changed to ESPN, which requires cable (this seems to have changed, as ABC and ESPN carry the games simultaneously).

I guess the point I'm getting at is I'm done. DirecTV is a ripoff, for the little we watch it. And I refuse to pay for a streaming service.

I get over 20 channels using a digital "rabbit ears" antenna. That would cover local news and weather, as well as a lot of sports. Plus old reruns and movies that I prefer anyway.

I remember when our cable bill was $29.95 when we got married, and I thought that was a lot then.

Rant over.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

The NFL secretly wants all of their games to be on pay TV so they can control the viewership and the $$$$'s coming in from every fan.

That's a good rant!

The level of Bravo Sierra that's on TV makes me need a high dose of psychotropic drugs!

Dish bill is $156 and we watch about 6 channels.

Having to figure out where a football game is that I want to watch is like a 15-minute pop quiz to let me know I have Mild Cognitive Impairment.

I pays my money and I sees stuff I want to watch.

I win every time.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I paid $30 for a power antenna on eBay. Get about 50 channels, which include the 3 networks, movie, history and other cool channels. Free

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213th FBINA

I guess the point I'm getting at is I'm done. DirecTV is a ripoff, for the little we watch it. And I refuse to pay for a streaming service.



Rant over.[/QUOTE]

Amen, brother, just another money making scam for the networks, and the NFL ! We have Dish, but its the same story.

Amazon Fire TV. Google it. Get it. $31 per month once you’re set up. You get Everything. EVERYTHING.

Sooner or later the NFL will realize they are losing fans. It will take them time to realize it's what they did.

Remember when they added a comedian to Monday Night Football to increase viewership? That was so stupid.

NFL viewership has surged to a 9 year high averaging over 18.6 million viewers per game.

It's not going anywhere.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

We dropped satellite at the end of March. I don't miss it but my wife does so we have been looking at streaming. Trouble is we don't have strong internet so we are exploring options. By the way I put your $29.95 satellite bill in an inflation calculator. Guessed at that was 1992 so it said that bill should now be $68.45.

TV has degenerated over the years, along with most sports. Sad.

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No baby we aint

I've mentioned before that I live pretty elevated in the city so when our Satellite signal goes out I get a boatload of stations on antenna TV signal. It's pretty cool what channels are floating around out there for free.

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Waiting For The Sun.

there are hundreds of channels now... and still nothing worth watching... they didn't make more creative people... so it is just less creative people cranking out volume not substance

Boomers are no longer the targeted demographic for televised sports.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I am dropping Dish after the new year. My wife was the TV watcher and since she passed in September 129.00 a month to look at Dishscapes, and occasional western and Perry Mason is about 125 to much. I have fiber optic so I will go another route for TV or just quit cold turkey.

We had Direct TV for over twenty years. We were watching maybe half a dozen of so channels , including the local stations for local news and weather. We cut the service in ‘20, haven’t really missed anything since. We have Amazon prime, so we get that service and we get Netflix because our phone service contract provides it for free. And we really don’t watch much of those services either as the TV has become less prominent in our daily lives. As someone else here pointed out, us older folks are not the demographics TV is now focused on. I want entertainment or news, I come here, to the SW forum- I get a chuckle or learn something new almost every day…..

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"Your other right........."

For most of my life I was a couch potato and watched a ton of TV and sports. Now at 65 if I watch it in the evening it just puts me to sleep. I LOVED college football but now its unregulated, low grade professional football that's all about money and high salaries for players so I've watched very little this year. When I got divorced 6 years ago I felt like I needed to get in better shape and joined a boot camp and a boxing class and also bought some skis and joined a ski club and started going snow skiing again. Then came the mountain bike and I started riding the local trails and loved it and bought a bunch of new guns and started shooting rifles and handguns more and got into sporting clays. My new wife and I started backpack camping in the mountains and hiking and we play pickleball with a group about 7 hours a week. We may rent a movie sometime or watch a little TV before we go to bed but I found that I'm much happier and feel better when I'm not watching TV and the news.

Pretty good guess! 1993 actually. Of course, i was making like 10 bucks an hour then, so it seemed like a lot.

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BTDT, Got The T-Shirt

I worked in TV as maintenance engineer for many years.
Station carried Insipid Soap Operas.
Female audience was more interested in the "lives" of Soap Opera cast members.

I have not owned a TV set since 1964.
Several years ago I Won a set in a drawing.
Offered it for sale a Half of Wal-Mart price.
Quickly SOLD!

Bekeart

Fire TV gives you access to most or all of the various streaming options (for example: Netflix) but you still need to have a subscription to any streaming channel you want to watch.

I have a rural vacation home with no cable TV. Until recently it has had real slow internet so we've had a DISH subscription. About $150/month for the channels we wanted. I now have 1 gig fiber internet and I'm switching to YouTube TV for half the price, and more channels (particularly sports).

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Dennis
SWCA #2409, SWHF #353

Do a little searching on the great wide web and I'll bet you can find a solution to not being able to watch the NFL on TV

They'll replay the taped game later on the NFL channel.

Haven't watched the nfl since the players started all that kneeling humbug.

The players are also getting VERY pissed as well. The Kansas City Chiefs got a particularly wicked stretch of games-playing 3 games in 10 days. I think the players association will get involved. All the concussion protocals are just lip service compared to the lack of time to allow players to recuperate after short weeks common with the Thursday games, the over sea games, etc.

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Forum consigliere

Baseball is getting the same way. I got a subscription to MLB.tv so that I could watch all the out of market games I wanted to. Their advertising even said that. Except that so many other streaming services bought the rights to a lot of games that I get blackouts all the time. Sick of it. I don't watch pro football, basketball or hockey. As another member said, college is becoming the same as pro these days. Getting to the point I would rather watch ladies golf replays. Nice legs in shorts skirts on a lot of those ladies.

The only football I watch is the KC Chiefs. I wait till the next day and watch the highlights on YouTube for free. I get to see the best parts of the game in 15 minutes instead of 4 hours.

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protocalldesign.com

Nascar is heading that way next season! I sure aren't gonna be paying extra to watch the talking heads & advertising that goes with all that ****!

You could say the sun rises in the east and someone would tell you that you’re wrong. Whatever…….

I stopped watching college and pro sports a decade or so back. I found it was one of the most insignificant time suckers and my life is so much fuller because if it.

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Live long and prosper

Nope, me either ! Nascar is has gone downhill fast, and certainly not paying extra to watch it.

I have a FireTV and can’t get EVERYTHING for $31 dollars a month. FireTV does not have its own subscription with EVERYTHING. It gives me access to subscription services that can add up quickly.

You know how the Brits once conquered the world in search of spices, so they didn't have to use any of them?
Its kinda like how I have two TV's, so I never have to watch them.
We were all raised on the idiot box. It was the original electronic babysitter and a central fixture in our homes. Most of us are pretty much trained to gather around, tune in and zone out.
About the time direct TV went mainstream and those trees offering shade and summer climate control to our homes were removed for a clear view of the southern sky, I fell away from the broadcast TV congregation. the 299 channels of garbage we traded those trees for offended most of my sensibilities as deus ex machina plot twists were cranked up to eleven.

Today I see a society loaded with folks who seem to think everything will come out on the wash while sitting idly by while the consequences of inaction breach the levy.
The age of legal weed is approaching, with 39 states having some legal provisions for it, 24 recreational use. For the cost of a TV subscription, you can take a better trip on some dispensary grade and perhaps be no worse off.

NFL???? read the fine print folks ... it's no longer the sport sanctioning body we used to know. It's now an entertainment company. That means the game can and will be manipulated to maximize ratings instead of just allowing the game to be played and it's result left to stand in history like the real contests of Vince Lombardi's era.

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it just needs more voltage

I agree completely but...The biggest portion of revenue that funds the huge salaries pro athletes make is from the broadcast rights. The media isn't going to simply back off the scheduling patterns we see today. Will the players take less money? Baseball talks about cutting back on the 162 game schedule. Will the players tale less money? I didn't think so!

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Dennis
SWCA #2409, SWHF #353

They won't have the Chief's game on live today . . .

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Wisdom comes thru fear . . .

Over the last few years I’ve noticed that people will boycott certain companies because of their woke BS. But the same people will not boycott their favorite sport. They just can’t bring themselves to do it.

Not saying that’s a bad thing. Just an observation.

I won’t watch anything that is disrespectful to our country, to first responders, our military, and a common sense way of life.

Haven’t watched broadcast tv for several years. Don’t miss it.

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Life Is A Gift. Defend it!

I dumped Direct TV over a year ago and have a couple of streaming services including Hulu, Netflix and Amazon Prime. I'm paying half the money I did under Direct TV and getting just most everything I want to see.

I don't care too much for the game, now that they changed the way they do the "Kick off's" now and how the clock is handled on out of bounds plays.
When I played , when you went out of bounds, the clock stopped,
no matter what direction the offensive player was facing !!

Don'r even get me started on car races.........

Not sure what demographic is in the scope.
It's certainly not gen X

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it just needs more voltage

While a bit lopsided and us having no horse in the race the boys and I enjoyed the Chiefs/Steelers game.

My entertainment dollars paid off.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

BINGO! Same thing is happening to terrestrial radio as well.

Notice how terrestrial TV not-so-subtly points toward the particular networks' streaming services these days?

Terrestrial TV will always be there to an extent just like when radio was "dethroned" by television. But if you think the garbage they show now is bad...just wait.

Cable TV is overpriced, has always been overrated, and is going to be the system slowly going the same route as the Dodo.

Streaming is "the next big thing" in broadcasting and every entertainment conglomerate will be putting more and more resources into this market than anything else in the next decade.

I gave up on TV long ago and don't feel the need for either cable or streaming.

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The Last Standing Knight

Major League Baseball did the same thing years ago. I listened to my team on radio since I was a little kid. Then in my 40's I had to pay a yearly fee to listen.

Get a smart TV, you'll get tons of free broadcasters like FreeVee, etc. Pay $15 a month for Netflix and just drop it when you no longer want to see it.

If boycotting stuff makes you happy, have at it.

I'm boycotting boycotting things.

Time on this rock is short as it is.

Watch, buy, eat, drink what you want.

The kneeling thing has been over for quite some time. They are back to just playing football again.

Time to let go.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I have petitioned Netflix for a refund and punitive damages for the Ravens/Texans halftime show.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

I find it funny how we just went through a cycle of, oh lets say 4 years, where everyone talks about the economy and how bad it is and how we need to deregulate and be more business friendly.

But based off the post above that must not count when it is something you want to watch.

I am not saying that the NFL isn't taking every advantage it can to make the most it can. Not a big fan of all the streaming and new TV options.

But that is the definition of deregulating (not so much in the government sense) and allowing the "FREE MARKET" to take over.

Just what most of us has asked for.

My timing was perfect, rib eyes were on the grill and I missed the show although it would not have taken much to have been better than the game itself.
We bailed with most of the 4th remaining, found an onDemand showing of the Boris Karloff Grinch then continued with the 2nd year viewing Violent Night. The wife's screeches of disgust and delight are my treat.

Cheap at thrice the price. Well worth every farthing.

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Music/Sports/Beer fan

Yep, not surprised ! Thats the method to their madness, milk you by streaming any programs that might be worth watching on different channels, along with your normal fees for the mostly junk tv that's currently on. And still having to endure all the commercials to boot.

Nope, not doing it !!!!!!!!!