Raining in Bawltimore

Here in the Washington/Baltimore region, fans of a local sports team are often unable to watch the games on TV due to asinine network restrictions. Sound familiar? No, I'm not talking about the Washington Nationals. I'm talking about the Baltimore Ravens, who are petitioning the NFL for more television market share in the region.

The Ravens want the league to treat Washington and Baltimore as a single market, which would allow "all Redskins and Ravens games to be seen on television in areas where the teams' fan bases overlap." Whoa. Wait a minute. FedEx Field and M&T Bank Stadium are less than 30 miles apart. This means that what the league thinks of as fan bases almost completely overlap. The Ravens want the league to bend over backwards to avoid scheduling Ravens and Redskins games in the same timeslot so everyone in the "fan base" can see both games.

The Ravens' line of thinking reflects two preposterous assumptions: that there is indeed a significant overlapping fan base and that everyone wants to watch Ravens and Redskins games. I have yet to meet anyone who is somehow both a Ravens and Redskins fan. The Redskins have been in DC since 1937; the Ravens have been in Baltimore since 1995. Anyone who is a Redskins fan has likely been one for a long time and doesn't give a hoot about the Ravens. If Baltimore has its way, all of us would see only Redskins and Ravens games every Sunday at 1 and 4 PM. Even if the Cowboys and Eagles were playing, you'd be stuck watching the Ravens and the Browns. Barf.

What makes the Ravens' suggestion even more ridiculous is the fact that Washington and Baltimore each have their own local network affiliates, unlike the other two-team markets in the NFL. The two New York teams and both Bay Area teams must share one station, so it makes sense that both teams would be broadcast. But Baltimore viewers can watch their own team on their own channel; so what if the two Ravens fans in Prince George's County can't see their team's games?

This is just the latest example of Baltimore's sports Napoleon complex. Baltimore is a tiny city with a tiny market that just happens to brush up against the large national capital of Washington, D.C.. Yet somehow, Baltimore repeatedly tries to shove its own sports markets down our throats. We in the D.C. area get every single Orioles game but over two million of us can't watch Nationals games because of a dispute between Comcast and Orioles owner Peter Angelos. Now these crabcake-eaters want to make us all watch their football games, too.

If the Ravens want a larger television market share they should pay the Redskins, just like the Orioles make the Nationals pay to air their games. There's no reason for the league to bend over backwards just to line the Ravens' pockets with more advertising dollars. Redskins fans shouldn't have to sit through games of no interest to them, either. If the league is truly concerned about advertising revenue they'll keep the markets divided just the way they are. After all, what could be more of a money loser than millions of Washington fans shutting off the TV at once as soon as the Redskins game is over?