Perhaps while they’re staying in one of the most luxurious resorts in America this week, the NFL and its owners will plan which week they’re going to pass the hat.
Because a lack of money is apparently keeping them from making what seems to be one of the easiest fixes among the current rules proposals.
Giants president and co-owner John Mara told Bob Glauber of Newsday that there wasn’t sufficient support for the Patriots’ proposal to add fixed cameras at the goal lines and sidelines to make replays more definitive.
“Mara cited cost and inconsistent configurations of different stadiums,” the report said.
Previously, the NFL has received love offerings in the forms of taxpayer money for stadiums and gigantic sums of money from television networks and ticket revenue.
So the cost of 12 cameras (assuming one on either end of the goal line, end line and sidelines) multiplied by 31 stadiums (30 if the L.A. franchise ends up sharing) clearly would send the league to its bankruptcy and untimely death.
And to think, some people thought it would be something trivial like concussion lawsuits.
If Mara wants to say that architecture problems are the reason, that’s fine. It’s still not completely swallowable because goal-line technology (hey, now there’s a progressive idea) is in use in soccer stadiums around the world, many of which are much older and smaller than the NFL’s. And tennis has a Hawkeye system to help with line calls that hasn’t seemed to bring the game to its knees.
Maybe the league has just recoiled reflexively at the idea of the Patriots asking for more cameras.
But trying to justify a move to not make officiating more accurate and accountable because of cost is simply insulting, as the owners meet beneath the swaying palms.