TV Time Out

 Sitting on the couch. Sunday afternoon. Hundreds of people are hard at work. I am not. I am watching other people work. I am watching all the coaches, players, physicians, announcers, camera operators, hot dog vendors and of course the referees of the National Football League. More to the point: I am watching the NFL Network's RedZone. 

All touchdowns. All scoring plays. No commercials. Starting just after ten in the morning and wrappinng up when all the late games have concluded. Did I mention there are no commercials? Just touchdowns. If you happen to be a football fan, which I am, this is pretty hard to ignore. It hardly seems fair.

Fair would be sitting through eleven ads for pickup trucks and four more for Doritos. Fair would be timeouts for instant replay. Fair would be enduring the chatter between the color and play by play guy. Fair would be feigning interest in whatever sideline reporter had to add in the name of human interest. Fair would be staying tuned for halftime shows filled with all the highlights from other games. 

But with NFL Redzone I will be watching none of that. Just the touchdowns that will be highlights on those halftime shows that I am not watching. This is not a commercial for this cable network. I am paying for this relative convenience. It's not free. Unless you mean free of commercials. I'm not flipping channels to try and avoid beer ads. I'm not flipping at all. 

The thing that I marvel at, much more than the skill and physical feats, is the endurance of Scott Hanson. Mister Hanson is the guy who brings all the action all day long straight to me. And anybody else glued to their couches. He's the one who isn't getting a break. He's the one who has to make sense of the fusillade of football action. I can get up and go to the bathroom if I want to. But why would I want to do that?