According to the Baltimore Sun, U.S. Senator John F. Kerry (D-MA) is getting into the act of trying to get this Saturday’s NFL game between the New England Patriots and the New York Giants moved from the NFL Network to NBC.
The NFL Network is a cable-based network that is in only about 35 million households nationwide due to a battle with cable operators over channel positioning and pricing.
The game meanwhile pits the first NFL team in 35 with a chance to finish a season undefeated as the 15-0 Patriots face the Giants in the season finale for both clubs at Giants stadium in the Meadowlands.
On Christmas Eve Day Kerry officially requested through Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, that the game be placed on national television and has threatened Senate hearings if it is not.
“Under the unfortunate circumstance that this matter remains unresolved, leaving 60 percent of households across the country – including thousands in Massachusetts – without access to Saturday’s game, I will ask the Senate Commerce Committee to hold hearings on how the emergence of premium sports channels are impacting the consumer,” he wrote to Goodell today in a letter released by his office.
“As a Bostonian, I couldn’t be more pleased that in just five days, the New England Patriots will attempt to become the first NFL team in 35 years to finish the regular season with an undefeated record,” Kerry wrote. “But as someone who represents all of Massachusetts and not just those in the Boston media market, I remain deeply troubled that today as many as 250,000 Massachusetts households, and millions of Patriots fans nationwide, may be denied access to this historic sporting event. …
“For a game of this significance to be used as a bargaining chip or point of leverage between corporations locked in a dispute would say a great deal about the esteem in which America’s football fans are held by the big interests,” Kerry wrote.
