NFL TV Distribution Maps
 If sports fans don't have something to grouse about, they're not happy. When it comes to the NFL, fans find plenty to complain about. Scofflaw players, egotistical coaches, and phantom penalties are just a few of the topics ripe for ripping. But one mundane matter sacks the rest when it comes to seething fan anger. Namely, the capricious choices of the networks as to which game(s) you'll be watching in your local market.
Local network affiliates have bewildered fans for years with their game selections. One man is using the power of the Web to shine a light on their practices. J.P. Kirby is an enterprising engineering student at the University of New Brunswick, and he's been putting together NFL TV Distribution Maps on the Internet since 2005. His maps have attracted a following among pigskin devotees and are a must-check for football fiends each and every week during the season. We chatted with Mr. Kirby via email and picked his brain about TV, football, and his favorite announcers... Hey J.P., how did you come up with the concept for the NFL distribution maps? I've been lurking around various football message boards for quite a few years now and I often saw people whining about how they showed Game X in their hometown over Game Y. I wondered if there was an easy way to find out where each game was going—there wasn't. Curious, about midway through the 2002 season I went to one of those TV listings sites and looked up each station and filled in a crude map. I did that a few more times in 2003, for most of the season in 2004, and turned it into a full website in 2005. As I always say, it combines 3 of my passions—geography, broadcasting, and football. Are you surprised at how popular the site's become? Absolutely. Every time I look at the site stats I become more and more floored. I had to upgrade to a bigger server last week because I almost ran out of bandwidth for the month after Week 1. What's been the biggest surprise? How fast the word of mouth has spread. I first posted the links to these maps on just two message boards. Before long, I found out people had taken it from there and posted them on what seems like every football board in existence. Did Deadspin give you the biggest traffic boost? That's how we came across your work in 2005... Deadspin definitely gave a big boost (fark.com too), but the biggest that I noticed was a mention in the Tuesday Morning Quarterback column on espn.com. I think traffic to the site jumped 4-5x more than usual when it was mentioned. Have you heard from anyone in the TV business? Never on the network level, although the site logs show that people from CBS and FOX have visited at some point. Some ex-employees of local affiliates have joined the message board with some of their tales. Do you think you could get a job working on NFL programming given all the research you've done over the past few years? Maybe...if the networks ever come calling. What's the quirkiest programming trend you've noticed since you started doing the maps? The biggest surprise has been how many stations in college towns have shown games involving former college superstars, even over the "local" NFL team. There's a big controversy in Austin, TX right now among Texans fans because the local station there is showing the Titans (because of Vince Young) every week. Who's your favorite broadcast team? Jim Nantz and Phil Simms on CBS. I really like Nantz's play-by-play style, and Simms is as fair and accurate an analyst there is. Who's the most underrated broadcast team? Ron Pitts and Terry Donahue, one of Fox's lower-level teams. They never get any of the superstar-filled teams, so they never do any hype and just talk about the game at hand. And most overrated? Al Michaels and John Madden. Michaels seems somewhat of a prima-donna to me, and Madden just leaves me scratching my head more than he gives any insight into anything. What's your opinion of the NFL local blackout rule? I don't agree with it. In an age where 95% of games sell out anyway, I don't see how it would hurt the league financially to knock the other 5% off of TV. It's not like the NFL is in a tough financial situation. What region of the country gets the best games week in, week out? I'd say Las Vegas. They're not locked into showing any one team, so they usually show a better game each week. Los Angeles is pretty good for that too, except that they show a lot of Raiders games. Are the Cowboys still America's team? If you believe the TV programmers, yes. I don't think the current glamour teams like the Patriots or Colts have made a mark on the league's fans the way the Cowboys did 10 years ago. What's in the future for your site? Eventually (and this would be next year at the earliest), I'd like to have a search feature where you could put your hometown in and it would come up with a list of games shown in your area. Thanks J.P.! Your hard work is a shining example of what happens when fandom and ingenuity collide.
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