It must be nice to be an NFL owner. No need to concern oneself with the problems of the little people who are too broke to afford a ticket. In fact, who cares if they are struggling with rolling blackouts during one of the harshest winters in recent memory? If you are the Tennessee Titans, go ahead and power up the stadium. You’ve got a game to play.
According to NewsBusters, rolling blackouts left many Tennesseans in the dark and the cold on Christmas Day. Others were forced to limit their use of electricity. Nashville temperatures on Sunday were in the teens to the 30s, which put a strain on the Tennessee Valley Authority’s grid. So rolling blackouts were implemented. But not for the Titans. ESPN reported that the team did make the magnanimous move of postponing the opening kickoff:
Due to power outages and rolling blackouts caused by extreme cold in the area, the start of the Tennessee Titans’ 19-14 loss to the Houston Texans on Saturday was delayed by one hour.
The game kicked off at 2:02 p.m. ET.
Due to the extreme weather and power outages affecting our region, kickoff for today’s game has been postponed one hour to 1 p.m. CT,” the Titans said in a statement. “This decision was made in partnership with the NFL, Office of Emergency Management, Nashville Electric Service and the Mayor’s Office in an abundance of caution to ensure that the game would not negatively impact our community in any way. We are exploring every possibility to minimize non-essential power around the stadium. Gates are currently open and fans are welcome to enter.
At all times, the operation of the game remained secondary to the well-being of our community and we can’t thank the OEM and NES enough for their dedication to the safety of our neighbors.
The game had been bumped from Saturday to Sunday, but someone forgot to tell the weather that it was supposed to care. And despite the postponement, the field was covered with a tarp with blowers shooting hot air to ensure that the playing surface was dry for four hours prior to kickoff.
You can see above where the team thanked Nashville mayor John Cooper for working with the NFL. Cooper had to ask the league to hold off on the game. But not everyone was mollified. NewsBusters had some of the tweets:
Please cancel the titans game today! It is appalling that will continue as we’re being asked to sacrifice our safety in rolling blackouts.
This has been predicted for weeks. Why are you forcing people, you are not telling them you are forcing them, to lower their power during a cold front? When titan stadium and many bars have and keep their power? How about you not play us like a fiddle. You are lying.
Four Biden appointees just confirmed and appointed to the TVA. Rolling blackouts in 7 states. What a coincidence.
As Hank Jr. might have said when he sang the NFL opening song: I’ve got some salt on the ground and my roof’s under ice/All my frozen friends are goin’ under tonight.
I get it; all’s well that ends well, and a good time was had by some. Get over it and move on, right Nashville? Wrong. The hubris displayed by the team and the league shows the contempt they hold for the people in the state that the franchise calls home. Or maybe it is just disregard. But we need to sell those tickets, right, Roger Goodell?
I used to be a sports guy. So much so that when it came to the NFL and NBA, I could tell you what teams needed to win which games for another team to go to the playoffs. I loved my press passes for the Utah Jazz, and one broadcast partner and I got the chance to talk to the legendary and media-shy John Stockton. But much of that enthusiasm burned out during the NBA strike of 2011.
I often ask myself why so many conservatives are quick to disparage the wokeness of pro sports, but people still tune in week after week. You can’t post a piece about the NBA, NFL, and increasingly the MLB without the commenters saying that they gave up those leagues a long time ago. Are there that few conservatives, or is it easy to say you’re done with professional sports while still tuning in on an idle Sunday? I will cop to watching a little bit of the last Super Bowl, but that was only because the Bengals were in it, which in case you did not know, is one of the signs of the End Times.
But for some reason, people keep buying their pajamas, hats, shirts, jerseys, flip-flops, bikinis, posters, bobbleheads, and God knows what else and take out second mortgages to go to the games. All for franchises that, when push comes to shove, could not care less who is left out in the cold. Literally.
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