It’s a testament to the ever-growing popularity of the NFL (National Football League) that Network Television will air its annual draft this year †in prime time. Although the draft has been televised in the past, it has always been on a Saturday morning, never in the evening. It’s different this year. The draft, and all of the pre-draft hoopla, will be televised live, not for one evening, but, believe it or not †for two full evenings. There will be lots and lots of talk before the draft. Then, there will be coverage of the draft itself †from the first round all the way up to and through the final round. And then, there will be post-draft coverage and analysis. It may seem to some that televising something like a draft of future players is boring and far from entertaining. However, if you know anything at all about NFL football fans, you realize that â€boring†is a word that doesn’t fit their reality. Fans are, well, short for â€fanatic.†And that means there is nothing about the sport they love that is †or can ever be †boring. It’s not possible. If you’ve ever tuned in a Sunday afternoon game and watched as cameras panned the crowded stands, you’ve seen people without shirts (in frigid weather) painted in the colors of the team they root for †an act of fanaticism, for sure †or is it insanity? Anyway, the network that will carry live coverage of the NFL Draft is ESPN which is, of course, the ultimate sports programming network. Fans are already excited and are eagerly anticipating the shows that will run over two evenings. As happens in every draft, there will be a live audience of â€screaming crazies,†fans who will spend hours seated in the theater where the draft takes place watching †people talk. I know †it doesn’t sound like it will be time well spent. But, it needs to be repeated, football fans are â€fanatic,†rabid about their teams and willing to subject themselves to all kinds of pain †agony †discomfort †ennui if, in so doing, it will somehow help their teams improve. Clearly, it doesn’t make sense to any normal person who is not a football fan. But it’s entirely logical and sensible to the people who paint their faces and forget to wear shirts when the temperature dips to levels below freezing. You need to understand the mindset of football fans to know why ESPN is likely to net a huge audience for this year’s televised draft. By: Frank Bilotta
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