NEW ERA FOR NFL BEGINS TONIGHT

OK, I’m feeling pretty pathetic right now. (Or, as some of you would say, more pathetic than usual.) I’m excited about the fact that the NFL will unveil tonight in four cities the first-ever live 3D broadcast of a pro football game, when the Raiders-Chargers game. I’m excited, and I won’t even be there to see it. Pathetic. I’m excited simply because I’m waiting to hear from folks who attend how awesome it will be. Pathetic. I tried initially to finagle an invitation to the New York screening, but Thursdays are heavy workload nights at PFT world headquarters, what with the taping of the Pro Football Preview segment for FSN and the drafting of a column for SportingNews.com. (Then again, I could just find something online that someone else has written, copy it, remove a hyphen or two, and send it to Barry Reeves. No one would ever know, right? Right?) On Wednesday, when an invitation was sent by the Patriots to the media e-mail list for the remaining tickets that hadn’t been gobbled up by the hand-picked high rollers who had been invited to attend, I actually thought for a moment about trying to get to Boston on one day’s notice. Pathetic. But, really, at a time when we’re dealing with StarCaps and Plax’s cap in his thigh, it’s truly a great day for the league. As I discussed on Thursday with Dan Patrick (yes, I am a name-dropping douche), it’s the future of the sport. Dan thinks that it could become so popular that folks will prefer watching a game in 3D at a movie house to attending one in person. And I agree. I also know it’ll be awesome because the U2 concert film shot in 3D made me into a U2 fan even though I’d been ambivalent toward their largely indistinguishable songs for the last 25 years. So, as we’ve previously said, to hell with Europe (except for U2). The new revenue stream for the NFL is every city and town with a 3D projector and several hundred seats that can be sold at $40 a pop. Mark our words -- it will be huge. And it’s coming sooner than anyone realizes. So when you see folks cooking brats and drinking beer in the parking lot of the local shopping mall, don’t be alarmed. They’re not homeless; they’re just tailgating.