Does anyone, besides NBC and sports talk radio, care that the Ravens aren't opening at home?

The Game Room
1

I can’t believe the amount of hot air I’ve heard about the Ravens not being able to open at home on the Thursday after Labor Day because of a Baltimore Orioles game being scheduled at the same time. The Orioles didn’t want to change the game time since they’re playing the White Sox and both teams have a night game the previous night and then have to fly to Baltimore. Sure, there is a chance that both teams will be way out of the pennant race by September, but there is also a chance that the Orioles or White Sox will still be competitive then.

The ‘tradition’ of the winning Super Bowl team opening on a Thursday at home only goes back a few years. Last year, the opening NFL game was played on a Wednesday due to the Democratic convention and the President’s acceptance speech. This year, the NFL doesn’t want to play on Wednesday because of
Rosh Hashanah, so the first NFL game will be played in Denver with the Ravens travelling to Denver.

First of all, the NFL is full of shit when they say they don’t want to play on the Jewish holiday. The NFL regularly plays games on Christmas. They don’t want a Wednesday night game because the Ravens aren’t a national draw and they don’t have Ray Lewis to love or hate. Last year, they opened with the Cowboys and the NY Giants, two teams that will draw great ratings if the game was played in Tokyo and started at 3 AM Eastern time.

The Ravens/Broncos will get decent ratings, but NBC probably figures, rightly, that they’re going to do better on a Thursday heading into the weekend rather than playing right smack in the middle of the week.

I don’t think it is a big deal that the Ravens open on the road. The Ravens will get the advantage of ten days after their first game. Also, since the Ravens would have to go to Denver anyway this season, may as well play the game when you’re guaranteed good weather.

2

So the NFL doesn’t get its way. OMG! Is this, like, legal??

(I actually haven’t heard much about it. Question, since I don’t know the answer and since everything in sports has its price–how much did the NFL offer to pay the O’s and the Sox, and MLB if necessary, to change the schedule around?)

PS I’m a baseball fan and don’t care much one way or the other about football.

3

I don’t think it was a matter of the NFL paying MLB to move the Orioles game, I think it was just a case of scheduling logistics. MLB teams will play almost every single day in August and early September, it is the last month before kids go back to school and every team wants home games then. There just wasn’t a good day to move the Orioles/ Sox game to without having a doubleheader.

I’m sure the lousy spring weather in most of the country didn’t help as off days are to be very rare this year since there have been so many games postponed.

4

To answer the OP’s question, of course nobody outside of the offices of NBC or the NFL cares the least little bit about the Ravens opening on the road. To call it a tempest in a teapot is to overstate the issue by 1,000%.

5

Nope.

6

Here in the Baltimore Metro area there was some small amount of angst among the most fervent of Ravens fans. But the Orioles are pretty popular these days, too, and most local sports fans are fan of both and stayed very reasonable about the whole thing.

This issue was mostly about those people who think that King Football should be accommodated whenever it wants and aghast when others don’t treat it like a religion. Personally, even though it remains my favorite sport to follow, I like seeing the NFL get stopped in its tracks once in a while. It doesn’t have to win all the goddamn time.