http://www.aolsportsblog.com/2007/04/29/why-tony-soprano-bet-on-a-fake-nfl-game/
Why Tony Soprano Bet on a Fake NFL Game
Posted Apr 29th 2007 9:52PM by Michael David Smith
If you're planning to watch this week's episode of The Sopranos but haven't seen it yet, you might want to skip this post.
On tonight's Sopranos, Tony Soprano bet on a football game. He watched the game on television, and it was portrayed as an actual NFL game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Buffalo Bills.
At one point the announcer even referred to "Losman," as in J.P. Losman, the Bills' starting quarterback. But if you looked closely you probably noticed that it wasn't actually an NFL game. The reason is that the NFL strictly guards the use of images from its games. Before any television show or movie can show footage from an NFL game, the league has to approve the script. And given that Tony Soprano was illegally gambling on this game and watching it surrounded by topless women, you can bet that the NFL would not have approved this script.
The NFL previously turned down the producers of Brokeback Mountain when they asked for the rights to show a brief snippet of an NFL game. Unless the NFL approves of the content of a script, the NFL doesn't allow its games to be shown. And that's why when you watched The Sopranos, Tony was watching a fake NFL game.
Why Tony Soprano Bet on a Fake NFL Game
Posted Apr 29th 2007 9:52PM by Michael David Smith
If you're planning to watch this week's episode of The Sopranos but haven't seen it yet, you might want to skip this post.
On tonight's Sopranos, Tony Soprano bet on a football game. He watched the game on television, and it was portrayed as an actual NFL game between the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Buffalo Bills.
At one point the announcer even referred to "Losman," as in J.P. Losman, the Bills' starting quarterback. But if you looked closely you probably noticed that it wasn't actually an NFL game. The reason is that the NFL strictly guards the use of images from its games. Before any television show or movie can show footage from an NFL game, the league has to approve the script. And given that Tony Soprano was illegally gambling on this game and watching it surrounded by topless women, you can bet that the NFL would not have approved this script.
The NFL previously turned down the producers of Brokeback Mountain when they asked for the rights to show a brief snippet of an NFL game. Unless the NFL approves of the content of a script, the NFL doesn't allow its games to be shown. And that's why when you watched The Sopranos, Tony was watching a fake NFL game.
Anyway during last night's show I found something funny. He made a bet on a harness race at Batavia Downs on the #1 horse. They show the odds on the #1 horse prior to him betting it. The odds were 2-1. He put some obscene amount on the #1 (between $10,000 and $20,000, I think). They show the race towards the end and the #1 horse still has odds of 2-1. Batavia Downs is and small track. They are lucky to get $10,000 in the win pool for 5 races combined. It would have been more realistic if they showed the odds at 1-9, which it would have been if he bet. If they did this though, it would have painted Tony as a bigger idiot for betting blind on a 1-9 shot at Batavia Downs.
The horse racing scene was inaccurate on SO many levels. Odds as were discussed earlier. They showed these guys like they were cheering for the horse about to finish, the first time they were approacing the 1/2 mile, then cheering again, then as they were to hit the wire. Bad editing. Also Batavia was bring shown, but off to the side of the main screen, Belmont Park was up. Belmont runs in the afternoon, Batavia at night. They were showing the payouts from the Grand Slam as the Batavia race was going off. That means Belmont still have one race left to run. Then to top this shit sundae of a scene, it was followed up by the screen changing to Los Alamitos. I would love to see the day that Los Al and Batavia and Belmont run at the same time.
