NFL drives into Internet, while baseball charges fans
Bears fans don't need to be in front of a TV to enjoy Sunday night's season opener. They don't even need to be near a radio.
A computer and a decent Internet connection will do.
Understand, I'm not talking about the convergence between a linebacker and a running back; I'm talking about the ever-approaching convergence between TV and the computer.
NBC and the NFL will be making all 17 of NBC's night games available for live streaming on NBCSports.com and NFL.com. The NFL will put all eight late-season NFL Network games on its Web site as well. It's the first time NFL games have been streamed live for U.S. viewing.
And, most important, it's all free.
So sure, fans can watch Al Michaels and John Madden do the game on NBC's WMAQ Channel 5 at 7 p.m. Sunday, but they can also opt to watch it on NBCSports.com or NFL.com, where it will be augmented with a lot of interactive bells and whistles, such as alternative camera angles, in-game highlights and live stats (for you fantasy players out there, and you know who you are).
Hey, I know I'm not kidding anybody. It's still better to watch a game in high definition on a plasma screen - or even just in plain old analog on a decent set - than on any computer. But it's a nice option to have.
And it's in marked opposition to Major League Baseball's use of the Internet. Now that we're into September and the pennant race, you can watch any game you desire via computer - at $8 a day on MLB.TV premium, or $20 for the rest of the year. You can get a plain old MLB.TV subscription for $15, but that figures to be of considerably less quality, even by computer standards. And Game Day Audio for just the radio broadcasts is also $8 a day, $15 for the rest of the season (although they will toss in 14 free weeks of Sports Illustrated).
Look, I know everyone's trying to figure out how to run the money meter on the Web, and newspapers and the music industry have already been brought to their knees by the abundance of free information and songs available via the Internet.
Yet the same way P.K. Wrigley was more visionary than even Bill Veeck in putting the Cubs' games on free TV (while Veeck, in his autobiography "Veeck as in Wreck," voiced the party line of not giving the product away for free), the NFL is ahead of MLB in giving its product - at least a high-profile part of it - away on the Web.
When you're traveling on vacation over the summer and want to stay abreast of how your team is doing, there's no way to get the radio broadcasts or the TV but for subscribing to MLB.TV or Game Day Audio (and that's if you have Internet access).
What's more, baseball's Internet highlights system is sadly lacking next to the NFL's. Go to the NFL.com or the Bears' site and you're inundated with highlight options. Yet many times over the summer I've thought how I'd like to hear how Ed Farmer and Steve Stone called a game-winning homer ("Light it up," is that Ed making a doobie reference?) or Pat Hughes and Ron Santo calling a tense final out, and they're just not there.
Hey, I still play the Spanish-language call of Albert Pujols' game-winning homer in Houston in the 2006 playoffs ("Largo! Largo! Largo! Home run de Pujols!") I have saved on my computer desktop when I need a little pick-me-up.
MLB is missing a great opportunity to build passion for the game just by making those audio highlights available. As it is, even the video highlights that are made available get the home-team call, so you just go ahead and enjoy those White Sox highlights from Wednesday's win in Cleveland.
It's already bad enough that the start of the football season is drowning out the pennant race. What baseball fans really can't stand is when the powers that be make it harder to like baseball than it is to like football.
tcox@dailyherald.com
In the air
Remotely interesting: Ken Harrelson and Darrin Jackson will do Tuesday's White Sox game against Toronto from the center-field Fan Deck as part of Blackhawks Night festivities. It starts at 7:11 p.m. on Comcast SportsNet Chicago.
Nathan Vasher has been named co-host of CSNC's "Countdown to Kickoff," previewing the Bears' next game and opponent, alongside Pat Boyle and Tom Thayer. The season premieres at 11 p.m. Thursday. CSNC will also do a postgame show after every Bears game starting Sunday night. ... "The Chicago Huddle" with host Ryan Chiaverini makes its season debut at 10:30 a.m. Sunday on WLS Channel 7. It tapes Fridays at 4 p.m. at ESPN Zone downtown.
End of the dial: The White Sox' Ed Farmer and Steve Stone of WSCR 670-AM and the Cubs' Pat Hughes and, yes, Ron Santo of WGN 720-AM are all up for fan balloting for the Baseball Hall of Fame Ford C. Frick Award for broadcasters, as is Harrelson. Fans will determine three of the 10 finalists. (So no, Lawrence Holmes, Stone is not yet a finalist.) Voting runs through the end of the month at baseballhall.org.
WRLR 98.3-FM is airing a local high school football game of the week, with Grayslake North at Antioch at 7:30 p.m. today. ... "The Mike North Webio Show" debuts at 9 a.m. Monday streaming at wildfirerestaurant.com. The weekday show will also be made available as a podcast at Apples' iTunes and northtonorth.com at 1 p.m. daily.
- Ted Cox