The National Football League is embarking on the first year of NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube, agreeing to a seven-year deal with Google worth $2 billion annually. The pact officially ended DIRECTV’s time with the property, which began from its inception in 1994 and grew into a global phenomenon, redefining the viewing experience.
As the video platform looks to compel users to sign up for the service, it has offered a variety of promotions and discounts geared towards appealing to both established football fans and millennials. The entity recently announced alternative payment options, giving fans the ability to remunerate the service gradually throughout the season. Moreover, students will be offered a special discount that will alleviate part of the cost they would incur to enjoy the service.
For legendary sports radio host Christopher “Mad Dog” Russo, he is displeased with the change and fears he will experience difficulties upon the start of Week 1 on Sept. 10. During his SiriusXM radio show Mad Dog Unleashed on Tuesday afternoon, Russo conveyed his frustrations with the platform and the difficulty he had signing up.
“It’s impossible!,” Russo exclaimed. “All they want to do is lose money! That’s all they want to do. Lose money with the service and lose money with [my] picks; that’s all I care about and they won’t let me do it.”
Russo expressed that the only time he uses YouTube is to find an old interview featuring musician David Crosby or to listen to music by Bob Dylan and Lynyrd Skynyrd. Otherwise, he hardly uses the service and feels that the emergence of media has become an inherent disadvantage for those who did not grow up around the new services.
“In this age, 2023, if you are not tech-savvy with your televisions and all your quote unquote devices, you’re finished. Finished!,” Russo said. “I bought the DIRECTV; I had them put the stupid things on my roof facing the southwest; I went through that process. I deal with the satellite loss with the storms, but I know with DIRECTV that when I get up and get ready to watch football on Sunday in September, October, November [and] December, I know I can lose money, which makes me happy because all the games are in front of me.”
Russo continued to lambast the service and predicts there will be issues when it becomes usable for the public. There are plenty of instances when he has castigated leagues and media entities for their decision making, frequently featuring them on his First Take segment, “What Are You Mad About?” On this Tuesday afternoon, he provided what could be a preview of more conversation about the subject on tomorrow’s edition of the morning debate show.
“We have no idea now whether on Sept. 10 at 1:01 [if] I can put [Andrew] Catalan on [with] Matt Ryan when he’s bouncing around doing the Bucs-Vikings game. That’s it!,” Russo said. “They make it so gosh darn difficult…. All the good things I did at church at 9 o’clock will be gone by 1 because I’ll be cursing up a storm and throwing things all over the house.”
