When Politics and Soccer Clash in Mexico…

When the last day of the Democratic National Convention—with President Obama scheduled to speak-- ended up falling on Opening Day for the NFL season chaos did not ensue. There were no ugly accusations or threats. In fact, it barely registered as a blip on the blogo-sphere.

Maybe that was because the NFL simply moved the game to Wednesday instead of holding onto the Thursday time slot. They probably would not have lost many, if any, viewers anyway. When people found out about the change it was no big deal.

However, south of the border in Mexico when it became public knowledge that a quarterfinal soccer match between Tigres and Morelia was scheduled to air the same time as a debate between presidential candidates  all heck broke loose.

If Roger Goodell wants more suspense he should do something like this. The debate had been scheduled for some time; on Monday it was announced by the Mexico Football Federation that the quarterfinal match would be aired on another network at the same time.

This of course sent political officials into a tizzy complaining that the game could easily be played on Sunday as they often are. One soccer official responded by simply saying people can watch the debate on one channel or the game on another—it's their choice (the whole basis of a democracy, right?).

Upon further examination, it makes sense that network executives would want to stick it to the man. Roughly five years ago legislation was passed forcing TV stations to air campaign ads for free.

It's a good thing that the government has not tried to push something like that on television networks in the United States. We can handle having a football game played a day earlier, but force us to sit through countless campaign ads (because you know there would be even more on the air if they were free) and we might revolt.

It's bad enough ‘the man' has messed with my football, but he better not mess with my NCIS, CSI, or GCB (yea, I watch it. Those accents are hot.).

Article by Travis Pulver