The playoffs.  What a great time to be a fan.  Whether one is lucky enough to attend a game in person or just chill on the couch gorging on nachos and cheese dip, it’s weeks of playoff football leading up to every fan’s favorite, the Super Bowl.   

Fans have lived through challenging times.  It took a while for most fans to overlook the Colin Kaepernick kneeling incident in 2016 and the way the NFL didn’t handle it.  There was 2020 with two events.  Mid-year, the Washington owners announced they were retiring the Redskins name and logo ending decades of debate over if it was offensive to Native Americans.  Fans took exception since the Kansas City Chiefs, Florida State Seminoles, Atlanta Braves and Chicago Blackhawks did not follow suit.  Later in 2020, the NFL found themselves trying to keep the games going despite COVID.  There was no pre-season and the games were played in front of players’ families and healthcare workers or no fans at all.  Games were rescheduled due to numerous positive COVID-19 tests.  

In 2021, Amazon acquired the exclusive rights to Thursday Night Football to commence in 2023.   This was the first time that the NFL had sold one of its main television packages to a digital media company.  It was no surprise to fans as the NFL had teased with trials on Twitter, Amazon Prime and Twitch in previous seasons.  Many fans did not bite as it represented additional costs to their sports viewing.  For many fans, Thursday Night Football viewing was replaced by Monday Night Football back on ABC Network in 2023 again after years just on ESPN. 

Here come the playoffs.  Testing with streaming in the regular season is one thing, but no one had advance warning of it going to the playoffs!  Last week at the conclusion of week 18, the Wildcard Weekend schedule for the six games was revealed.  They had two games on NBC, one on FOX, one on CBS, one on ABC/ESPN and one on Peacock – the Chiefs and Dolphins game.  Only fans in KC and Miami were able to watch on NBC Network.  The rest of the country could purchase a discounted rate for the game. 

My Facebook page and messaging erupted.  “Peacock?  Who?” fans asked.    Peacock video streaming service was created in 2020 and is a subsidiary of NBCUniversal Media Group.  It also carries the same peacock logo recognizable by most.  Some of the Peacock programming is free; however, sports are not.   Many fans said no to subscribing for the Chiefs and Miami game when they were already paying for cable or satellite. 

But that wasn’t the only complication with viewing the playoffs.  Direct TV had been in contract negotiations with Tegna stations.  Depending on what city you were in, Direct TV subscribers in 51 markets and about 39% of all TV homes nationwide had been locked out of CBS, ABC, FOX and/or NBC for almost two months!  The issue came to the forefront when Cleveland bars and fans with Direct TV found themselves without the ability to watch their local team in the playoffs.  Bars were destined to lose thousands of dollars.  Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown called on Tegna and DirecTV’s parent company AT&T to end the business dispute.  The standoff ended about two hours before the Browns and Texans kickoff. 

And it’s January.  What better time for NFL to battle challenges getting to the games in blizzards and field conditions for those playing in outdoor stadiums.  New York state officials were smart and when they discovered that Orchard Park NY, home of the Buffalo Bills, would be experiencing a lake-effect snow band coupled with very high winds and whiteout conditions across the area from Saturday night through the end of Sunday, they requested the NFL to move the game to the following day. 

Kansas City was not as proactive.  Instead, they found themselves playing the Miami Dolphins on a frozen field in a temperature of minus four at kickoff and that’s before wind chill.  Temperatures continued to fall during the game, minus seven by the end of the game and a wind chill of minus twenty-six!   A medical director at the University of Kansas Health System cautioned that there was “a risk of only 30 minutes of exposure before you could start to develop frostbite.”  Despite the warnings, faithful fans showed up looking like they were on the Artic Circle with fur lined coat hoods, thick gloves and many layers of clothes.  They resembled seventy-six thousand sumo wrestlers as they waddled through the stands pregame.  Re-sale tickets were going for forty dollars!   And yes, Taylor Swift arrived in a red puffer jacket with “Kelce” and his “87” jersey number on the front, back and sleeves. She accessorized with a white polar beanie and black boots.  Life is tough in a heated suite.