Letter: No Fun League’s edict hurts fans

Thursday, Feb. 5, 2004 | 8:54 a.m.

The NFL has repeatedly snubbed Las Vegas on everything from stadium advertising to rejecting Super Bowl commercials. Now it's shutting down big-screen parties that have been going on for years. This is the NFL's childish and shortsighted way of getting back at us for an extremely successful ad campaign telling America to come to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl, where the real party is.

The fact is the NFL's decision to close down parties like the one at the Palms is anti-fan. More important to the NFL should be the demographic of fans they are shutting out. These are people who have money to buy advertisers' products and are willing to travel far distances to watch a game that is often a dud. Furthermore, they are the people who stay to watch games until the bitter end (keeping ratings high) to see if their team will cover the spread or if the total will go over or under.

Football is a great game and the NFL does an amazing job, but its approach to dealing with Las Vegas serves nobody. By shunning Las Vegas, NFL officials hurt themselves, their advertisers, and worst of all, the fans.

TODD HAUSHALTER