Mike DiMauro: No Giants on TV this Sunday in most of CT

Mike DiMauro, The Day, New London, Conn.
·4 min read
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Oct. 12—In the pantheon of life's travails, the inability to watch a football game is right up there with dandruff and no mint on the pillow at the Marriott.

But then this is also true: Trying to watch your favorite team is becoming an Olympic sport, what with esoteric blackout rules, pricey cable bills and streaming services and the general exasperation tethered to the newfound perplexity of something that used to require pressing the "on" button.

Example: Unless you live in Fairfield County and have access to the CBS affiliate in New York or have NFL Sunday Ticket, you will not be able to watch the New York Football Giants from your living room Sunday afternoon.

This is because CBS will televise both the Giants and Patriots in the 1 p.m. window. WFSB (Channel 3), the CBS affiliate in Hartford, has chosen to air Pats-Browns.

I e-mailed the great Joe Zone, the sports director at Channel 3, at 9:45 a.m. Monday wondering who specifically makes the decision at the station to pick the Pats over the Giants.

"I can't answer that," Zone wrote back. "I sent your question along to our sales and programming departments."

No answer from anyone else at WFSB by Wednesday afternoon. I'm always amused when people in the communications business have little interest in communicating.

Anyhoo, Zone, whose candor here is appreciated, offered what other details he could (and this decision is not his call whatsoever).

"I can say that as a general rule, the road team's network televises the game when it is between AFC and NFC teams," Zone wrote, alluding to how the AFC mainly plays on CBS and the NFC on Fox. Hence, CBS gets the game at the Meadowlands Sunday because Baltimore (of the AFC) is the road team.

"This past Sunday, the Patriots game was televised by Fox because the Patriots played Detroit (an NFC team)," Zone wrote. "Therefore, we televised the next regional team on CBS, the Jets. As the CBS station in Connecticut, and as the station in this market that would televise Patriots games (AFC team), we always, when available to us, televise the Patriots."

Understood. And in fairness, Fox (Ch. 61) normally opts to show the Giants over the Patriots in times of conflict.

But given Connecticut's divided loyalties, why can't both stations decide such matters on a case-by-case basis? Why can't we accommodate the new evidence and changing circumstances that every NFL season brings instead of using "this is the way we've always done it" as a crutch?

Example: The Giants are the better story right now. They've morphed from pathetic to poignant in five short games. They are playing a team Sunday with one of the most exciting players in the league (Lamar Jackson) whose former defensive coordinator (Wink Martindale) now works for the Giants. There is no rational argument out there to suggest Pats-Browns is the more interesting game.

And yet here we are.

Full disclosure: I've written about this stuff before and have been, well, snippy. I've been a loyalist of the Giants for more than 40 years. Growing up, it was church at 11, Sunday dinner at 12, Giants at 1 and by 1:03, various family members were using language they had just discouraged in church.

I've always believed Connecticut is a Giants' state, mostly because they've been around for almost 40 more years than the Pats. It's why many New Englanders even north of Connecticut still root for them.

Full disclosure II: I've made a case for the Giants even in times when I had no business doing so. Like the last few years when the Pats were the (exponentially) more successful team. But I also understand that if Ravens-Giants were going against Pats-Chiefs, an argument for showing the Patriots would be as or more compelling.

And no, I can't go to a bar. I'll have my 12-year-old with me this weekend. Taking him to a gin mill for three hours on Sunday afternoon wouldn't help my Father Of The Year candidacy. Besides, with disposable income becoming almost fictional now, I join many others who really can't lay out any scarole, as they say in Italian, to watch a football game.

You may think this is morbid, but I spend time in thought about what I want written on my tombstone. The latest sampling: "Here lies Mikey D. He just wanted to watch the game."

But just when ol' Mikey D had navigated a summer of the Yankees on eight different networks, he gets kicked in the ascot again. No Giants this Sunday.

Yup. The Rolls Royce of first world problems. But patently absurd, too.

I'd ask our state television outlets to be more mindful in the future. But then, I'm only a viewer. Who cares about us anyway?

This is the opinion of Day sports columnist Mike DiMauro