How can the NFL be so RIGHT, and then so WRONG?

The NFL has stepped on its own....well, you know...by sending cease and desist letters based on what is very likely a way over-broad trademark infringement claim to local merchants selling Who Dat shirts.


It wasn’t long ago that I thought they really had their act together. For a few years there’s been a sizable traffic in bootleg copies of NFL games - people record them, burn them, and sell DVD-Rs of them for $10 or so (I ponied up for a copy of the post-Katrina Saints return to the Superdome versus the Falcons in 2006). But now the NFL is selling select games from the season - you can buy three of our games for $20 or so (probably cheaper elsewhere), and I presume they’re doing that for other teams.

Then, just five days after we won the NFC championship for the first time in franchise history, the game is available on DVD for just $15! Excellent - I don’t want to burn through our DVR watching the game over and over. I know the NFL has made official copies of recent Superbowls available for purchase, but I think this is the first season they’ve made other games available (I may just not have noticed like year when we were 8-8).

Now if they would just make ALL NFL games in a given season available. There are fans who would definitely buy most games, right? And since the NFL is partnering with Warner Brothers, who is pioneering what has been described as essentially DVD-on-demand of otherwise unavailable movies with their Warner Archives, they’ve got the infrastructure to do this. So come on, commissioner Goodell - stop harassing small businesses in New Orleans and open up the NFL game archives to the fans by making all games available on DVD!