I am a casual football fan, but I have to admit I kept an eye on the controversy surrounding Saturday night’s game. Those who don’t have the NFL Network were peeved that such a historic game would not be available to them for free, and the matter finally aroused the interest of Congress.

I don’t know the motivations behind the whole matter, but a deal was struck to simulcast the NFL Network game on CBS and NBC. Presumably it was to keep Congress off the back of the NFL. I was under the impression that the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 allowed Congress some oversight authority in exchange for granting the NFL anti-trust exemption. So the NFL made a deal with the devil, in the parlance of our times. I was eager to see how it all panned out.

What I saw, in addition to a good football game, was something of a win-win for the NFL Network. They turned it into a three hour commercial for their network. Game interstitials promoted NFL-N exclusives such as draft coverage, game recaps, NFL Films presentations, and the like. And NBC & CBS were forced to carry it! Imagine if the NFL had tried to buy three hours of commercial time…something they got for free Saturday night.

I have NFL Network on my satellite dish, so I’m no stranger to it. Frankly, I think Bryant Gumbel is one of the worst announcers to ever call the game. But I do like a lot of their exclusives, and they were granted access to two national broadcast networks last night in order to promote those exclusives to millions of potential subscribers. I bet there are NFL Network executives laughing themselves silly now that it’s done.

I couldn’t help but wonder what NBC and CBS execs must have thought while watching plug after plug for the NFL Network airing on their networks. I had to chuckle, because I think the NFL Network has every right to do so and were “sticking it to the Man” in a way. I hope they sent NBC and CBS a belated Merry Christmas card, because they got a heck of a freebie: 3 hours of promotional time on TWO broadcast networks during the game of the year, a game which set a historical record for the league. At the same time they got Congress off their backs (for now) and came out looking like the good guys. Good for them.