NFL to Churches: Praise the Lord but not the Super Bowl

Adhering to copyright laws, the NFL is disallowing churches the right to hold big-screen Super Bowl gatherings.

For years, as many as 200 members of Immanuel Bible Church and their friends have gathered in the church’s fellowship hall to watch the Super Bowl on its six-foot screen. The party featured hard hitting on the TV, plenty of food — and prayer.

But this year, Immanuel’s Super Bowl party is no more. After a crackdown by the National Football League on big-screen Super Bowl gatherings by churches, the Springfield church has sacked its event. Instead, church members will host parties in their homes.

Immanuel is among a number of churches in the Washington area and elsewhere that have been forced to use a new playbook to satisfy the NFL, which said that airing games at churches on large-screen TV sets violates the NFL copyright.

Ministers are not happy.

“There is a part of me that says, ‘Gee, doesn’t the NFL have enough money already?’” said Steve Holley, Immanuel’s executive pastor. He pointed out that bars are still allowed to air the game on big-screens TV sets. “It just doesn’t make sense.”

The Super Bowl, the most secular of American holidays, has long been popular among churches. With parties, prayer and Christian DVDs replacing the occasionally racy halftime shows, churches use the event as a way to reach members, and potential new members, in a non-churchlike atmosphere.

“It takes people who are not coming frequently, or who have fallen away, and shows them that the church can still have some fun,” said the Rev. Thomas Omholt, senior pastor of St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in the District. Omholt has hosted a Super Bowl party for young adults in his home for 20 years. “We can be a little less formal.”

The NFL said, however, that the copyright law on its games is long-standing and the language read at the end of each game is well known: “This telecast is copyrighted by the NFL for the private use of our audience. Any other use of this telecast or any pictures, descriptions, or accounts of the game without the NFL’s consent is prohibited.”

The league bans public exhibitions of its games on TV sets or screens larger than 55 inches because smaller sets limit the audience size. The section of federal copyright law giving the NFL protection over the content of its programming exempts sports bars, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.

The article continues and points out that the NFL’s policy, odious as it is in this context, could be challenged on legal grounds.

On the legal flip side, the NFL’s big-screen ban could end up landing the league in trouble.

John Whitehead, president of the Rutherford Institute, a Charlottesville civil liberties group that focuses on religious freedom issues, is threatening to sue the NFL on behalf of an Alabama church that wants to host a big-screen Super Bowl party. He is also seeking sponsors for federal legislation to exempt churches from the ban.

“It’s ridiculous,” Whitehead said. “You can go into these stores now and buy 100-inch screens. The law is just outdated.”

In Massachusetts, a church’s decision to cancel their Super Bowl gathering drew comments from an NFL spokesman.

North River Community Church was all set to hold a big Super Bowl gathering this Sunday, with the Patriots-Giants game on a giant video screen in the family-friendly atmosphere of the evangelical congregation’s worship center.

The Rev. Paul Atwater and his staff have canceled the event, however, to avoid getting flagged by the National Football League for copyright violations.

Atwater said he reluctantly made the decision after he checked the NFL’s policies and news reports of churches that were threatened with legal action for planning similar showings for the 2007 Super Bowl.

Because the North River event would be in a larger venue with a bigger screen than the 55-inch diagonal size the NFL allows, “we knew that doing this would not comply with NFL rules,” the pastor said.

“Even though we think this is a stupid law, we are going to abide by it.”

Instead, North River is encouraging church members to invite friends to their homes to watch the game. Members are also invited to wear Patriots jerseys and other team gear to the 9 and 11 a.m. Sunday services.

NFL communications vice president Brian McCarthy said he regretted hearing of the North River cancellation, but said the league is following decades-old federal copyright law.

“We have absolutely no objection to churches and others hosting Super Bowl parties,” he said. “We’ve never stopped a church from doing anything like this, as long as they aren’t trying to attract 400 or 500 people.”

While a free church event of that size might seem harmless, he said thousands of such non-commercial showings would significantly reduce network TV ratings, and thus cut the ad revenue on which Fox and the NFL are counting — an estimated $275 million for Sunday’s game.

In the final analysis, it seems the NFL is relying on a scriptural defense: “No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” (Matthew 6:24). And it is clear which master the NFL has picked.

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