Blame Baseball

Even the nation's sportswriters sometimes get tired of writing about baseball and its steroid 'scandals' (while somehow ignoring the fact that the average size of NFL players mysteriously increases by about 25 pounds of muscle every two weeks).
So, as a change of pace, these writers have now picked up a new fungo to beat MLB ownership about its collective head--the multi-market game broadcast license granted exclusively to DirecTV.
Now, off the top, I'm not saying this is a good thing. Even though I don't know how any of the traditional networks, or even ESPN, could ever devote enough bandwidth to give you access to virtually every game played. Would cable systems even agree to add to, or 'borrow' enough of, their existing channel menu to allow this? I don't know--and again, that's not my point.
What needs to be underscored is that this scenario--giving all-game rights exclusively to DirecTV--is actually not newsworthy at all. Because the NFL has been doing exactly the same thing for the last five years or so.
Have you ever heard a peep of complaint about that? No. Because it's the NFL. Deep in the recesses of the sportwriter mind is simple contrast: "Baseball ownership--bad. All other sports ownerships--good."
I worked in print and broadcast news for 20 years. I can assure you that sports reporters are not highly regarded among their peers on the basis of pure intellect.
This opinion is not unwarranted.

diderot