Why the NFL Hates Jesus

You've probably heard that the NFL has prohibited the Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis from showing the Superbowl on a projector screen.

It's not a very nice thing for the league to do, but it's primarily a legal issue.

The NFL owns and controls their broadcast, trademarks, etc. Among other things, that means they determine how and in what manner you can watch their broadcast. For example, the league has determined they only want DirecTV to have the rights to broadcast Sunday Ticket. Not Comcast. Not Dish Network. They can also say they don't want their games on projector screens or cell phone screens or any non-approved screen for that matter. Maybe in their eyes, it diminishes the presentation of the game. Maybe the league has determined that a 32" screen is optimal for viewing football. Maybe they're assholes. The league would still be exercising their legal rights.

Basically, most of us watch the NFL under a "personal" license (the specifics of which they've negotiated with your friendly cable provider or broadcaster, not you directly). The league has likely said in that license that it's okay for you and a couple of homies are able to gather around a screen and watch the game. Again, the NFL does have the right to dictate the manner in which their games are broadcast.

Furthermore, it is important to the NFL to know its only you and the homies so they can know how many people are watching the game. Viewers equal ad money. Say, they know 10 million tvs are receiving a game. Maybe they multiply by 4 to estimate how many people are watching the game. Obviously, if that average was skewed and it was 25 or 50 people to a screen, that disrupts the league's assumptions. Consequently, their ad revenue would be improperly estimated.

And, of course, the NFL doesn't want anyone else making money of their property. So, if you're hosting a party and charging admission or otherwise making money of the NFL's backs, they're not going to stand for that.

All that to say, the NFL basically has the right to do what they did to the Baptists.

However, a HUGE part of protecting copyrights has little to do with law and more with intimidation. That's why the music industry is suing grandmas and Levi's is suing every podunk seamstress over the stiching on a back pocket. There are plenty of cease and desist letters that go out that don't have much legal ground to stand on. However, for most, it's not worth it to stick to the Man. So the deep pockets get to bully the little people as they see fit.

The NFL is actually overreaching in the enforcement of its copyright. You know that audio they always play about all the ideas, impressions and everything in the world is the property of the NFL? Parts of that statement are bullshit. But they can scare you into obeying the enforceable parts by making the message more ominous. And who knows? Maybe one day the NFL will own everything in the world and they would have sewn up the rights.

A lot of the copyright law is nonsensical at this point. The 55 inches limit is actually in the code (I actually looked it up). So why are we even allowed to buy TV's bigger than 55 inches? Technology has also complicated things. If people don't understand emerging technologies, they can't write laws that sensibly address them. The copyright law was not originated when the economic consequences were so great. Now a few large companies that make a lot of money own a lot of intellectual property and those companies have the resources to lobby to get what is tantamount to carved out exceptions to protect their interests. And that's exactly what they do.

So, the NFL doesn't hate Jesus, but their lawyers do.