Jim Saccomano

The press has a very influential role in our society.  It presents the news, reports the news, and tells us what is going on in the world.

And sometimes it instructs us in what we are supposed to think and believe.  When it does that, it is counting on our cooperation in believing what it tells us, with the hope and confidence that we will not think for ourselves and form our own opinions.

Every year about this time I observe an example of this:  the Pro Bowl.

Last Sunday the NFL season ended entirely with the annual playing of the Pro Bowl, the NFL all-star game, which is about to end a 30-year run in Honolulu, Hawaii.

Presently there are discussions about whether or not to extend the contract in Hawaii, and while none of us knows what the result will be, one thing we do know is that the Pro Bowl remains very unpopular with the press, and very popular with the public.

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While the Denver Broncos are many other franchises are moving toward getting better and contending in 2008, for some employees of a number of teams, the season won’t be over until the day after the Super Bowl.

I am one of those, and while I do not wish to seem like I am walking the dog, I thought it might be interesting to share a couple of things that happen behind the scenes.

The Super Bowl is the largest non-Olympic sporting event ever put on in the world, in terms of interest, particularly from the media overall and television in particular.

Everyone knows that it is televised internationally, and the ten most watched TV shows in American history, no matter how the standard is skewed, always included at least seven or eight Super Bowl games in that list–sometimes more.

Because it is so large, it is just too much for the NFL New York employees to handle all by themselves, even though they work from about seven a.m. until about eleven p.m. for the three weeks leading up to the game.  So, they import veterans in various positions from some of the teams.

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Once upon a time we depended on the morning newspaper, the afternoon newspaper, the TV news at 5 and 10 p.m., and some occasional radio information as our news sources.

How things have changed in the last two decades.

The standard sources still exist, to be sure, and they are as aggressive in the pursuit of information as ever.

But radio now has more talk shows than anyone can count — and that’s just in one city.

Television newscasts — the five and ten — have been joined by the 5 a.m., 6 a.m. 7 a.m., 12 noon, 4 p.m., 6 p.m broadcasts, to say nothing of the local stations now competing with dozens of networks, many of which are 24 hours a day.

And that’s before we consider the Internet.  

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With the start of the NFL regular season comes one of the most prized aspects of the season, for those of us who work within the sport — that being routine.

During the all-important training-camp period, the Denver Broncos played games on Monday night, Saturday night, Saturday night, and Thursday night, squeezing four preseason games into an 18-day period.

In between, there were two-a-day practices, special teams practices, meetings in the morning, noon, and night, with player treatment and press sessions to go along with every period on the field.

Every team looks forward to settling into the routine, which does not vary much for any NFL club during the course of the season.

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