How can I be mad at a win?
I’ll tell you why.
The Detroit Lions have been the laughing-stock of the NFL for almost as long as I can remember keeping track. For the last 25 years or so, the Lions have managed to lose most of their games, culminating in the embarrassment of the 2008 season, wherein they won the staggering total of 0 games. And the nation was able to watch this embarrassment live as it happened because of one thing: The NFL Blackout Policy.
In it’s simplest terms, the Blackout Policy stops any game that is not sold out at the venue from playing on network TV. For as long as I can remember, the Lions have been on TV on Sunday afternoons, and I can’t think of the last time I couldn’t watch them fail miserably because DETROIT SPORTS FANS CONTINUED TO BUY TICKETS.
This allowed a few things to happen:
- We could continue to watch the painful experience of a Lions game from the comfort of our own homes
- Bill Ford Jr. could continue to reap the rewards of selling 30,000+ tickets at exorbitant prices
- The networks could continue to rake in the profits from advertising
- The Lions still lost
This season, 2009, seems to be a bit of an exception both in Detroit, and in other markets. Sell-outs are expected to be at a near all-time low, and correspondingly, blackouts are expected to be near an all-time high.
Today was one of those blackout games. The Lions stellar record of losing, coupled with the insanity of the Detroit economy have converged to create a surprisingly rare non-sellout game.
And then they win.
For the first time in almost TWO FULL YEARS, the Lions managed to pull out a regular-season win. And the only ones who could see it are those that bought tickets.
But this is not the thing I’m upset about.
I’m upset about the fact that a sellout for the Lions’ next home appearance is almost a guarantee. That’s how it is with sports. A team does something out of the ordinary (sadly, in this case, that would be winning), and ticket sales for the next appearance get a major boost.
Anyone want to take bets on how they’ll do in the next appearance, when everyone is able to again watch them? With the state of the team such as it is, choosing ‘Win’ is a complete sucker’s bet.
Until Bill Ford Jr. gets his head removed from his rectum and decides to hire a staff that will build a team WITH A DEFENSIVE LINE THAT COULD STOP A DECENT HIGH SCHOOL TEAM, the Lions will continue to have embarrassingly bad seasons.
So, here I am, one of the (probably) very few people that is really unhappy that the Lions won today. I wish I could have it the other way, but I just can’t bring myself to feel excited for a team that has so consistently let us down for so long.
Pull off a .500 season, and I might start to think about getting excited again. Until then, it’s just more of the same. Over and over.