On Mon, Nov 21, 2016 at 3:01 PM, PGage <[email protected]> wrote: > Like Doug, Daniel's statement that the NFL was hoping to hold and > broadcast games the Monday after 9/11 caught my eye. Daniel has now > softened that to "there was talk" of holding games that weekend, which of > course is true in the most trivial of senses. But my understanding is that > a clear decision was made and announced no later than Friday that all games > that weekend had been cancelled, and I was not aware of any substantive > plans to televise games that Monday. > > There is this interview with Paul Tagliabue (http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/ > story/Former-NFL-commissioner-Paul-Tagliabue-recalls- > decision-to-cancel-games-after-9-11-090911) on the 10th anniversary, in > which he says that there were those in the NFL offices who argued strongly > that canceling games would mean letting "the terrorists win" (I remember > that argument clearly) - but the piece also has this: > > "From the beginning, Tagliabue said, he and NFLPA executive director Gene >> Upshaw saw eye-to-eye on the matter. But others still pushed back, so much >> so that Tagliabue said he finally settled it this way: I’m doing it. And >> that’s that. >> “I said, ‘I don’t have to take a vote of the owners. I have the authority >> in extraordinary circumstances to make this decision and I’m going to do >> it.’” Almost exactly 48 hours after the North Tower collapsed, it was >> official. There would be no NFL games that week. > > > Fox Sports was doing a lot of ass-kissing with Tagliabue in those days, so > this could be a convenient re-shaping of history, though as I say it is > consistent with my memory of that week as well. Not to mention, it is hard > to imagine that security concerns would have even allowed them to play a > game that soon. I was on the Board of my kid's school at the time, and we > had an emergency meeting to see if we would allow a scheduled field trip to > San Francisco (including a walk over the Golden Gate bridge, which had been > mentioned as a likely terrorist target) to take place (we did, but only > after consulting with local police authorities, and with a lot of parental > anxiety, including my own). > > If you have a source suggesting that there was serious discussion of > holding and broadcasting NFL games that weekend I would be very interested > in seeing it, as it relates to an interest I have in how big time sports > interacts with major societal events. >
When the topic of NFL games came up in the media, and I don't remember if this was national or limited to Pittsburgh, it was repeatedly mentioned that the NFL had to decide what to do about the weekend's scheduled games when Kennedy was assassinated. They decided to keep to the schedule and play the games in order to take peoples' minds off the news and everybody involved at the time who is still with the NFL or the networks said emphatically that it was a mistake. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
