Note to sports: leave Chris “Mad Dog” Russo to the confines of his rabbit ear antenna or transistor radio and please stop making him use streaming services to consume games.
The first regular season NFL game broadcast exclusively on Amazon’s Prime Video premiered Thursday night and according to commissioner Roger Goodell, it marked a “historic moment in NFL history.” Russo has railed against Major League Baseball for its various streaming partnerships with Apple, Amazon Prime and Peacock, it’s only fair that he gives the NFL similar treatment.
“You know who’s happy about the game tonight? The 32 owners who can split a billion,” Russo ranted on his SiriusXM radio show. “That’s who’s happy about it. The Arthur Blanks of the world. That is who’s pleased. They don’t give a garbage, they don’t care where the game is!”
Roger Goodell has called tonight’s NFL Amazon Prime broadcast “historic.” This has caused @MadDogUnleashed to completely lose his mind and destroy Goodell. pic.twitter.com/q2SthM8e3C
— Jimmy Traina (@JimmyTraina) September 15, 2022
“These, owners,” Russo continued. “THEY DON’T CARE WHERE THE GAMES ARE ON! And Arthur’s sitting there with his flip-flops tonight, our pal down in Atlanta, asking his grandkids ‘can ya find the game? I don’t know how to handle the remote,’ with his milk and cookies at 8:15. And then when the grandkid can’t find the game, he’s throwing the remote at the TV set!”
Is it widely known that the 79-year-old Atlanta Falcons owner wears flip-flops around the house and enjoys a snack of milk and cookies every night? Or is that just some sort of strangely detailed scenario Russo concocted for the sake of his argument?
“If this is such a historic, incredible, once-in-a-lifetime event, then somebody explain to me,” Russo said. “How the hell on December 22nd is the Thursday night game on Amazon Jacksonville at the Jets! If this is one of the great events in the history of mankind, this is the advent of television…if that is the case, Rog, how the hell is Jacksonville playing the Jets on December 22nd? GARBAGE!”
I don’t want to sound like an apologist, but how come this argument only arises with the NFL and MLB? No one screams about Ozark or Ted Lasso not being available on broadcast television. No one has trouble figuring out how to access Netflix when they want to watch a movie. The worst part about using a streaming service to watch a game is the inability to channel surf during commercials. But Boomers and Gen Xers shouldn’t be launching remotes at televisions sets because they can’t access Thursday Night Football.
[Mad Dog Radio via Jimmy Traina]
