The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

I need utee94's help.  I probably need PiratesRoost, but I haven't seen that guy in years.

Can somebody explain to me the NFL TV contracts?  My limited, basic, probably-wrong understanding is that FOX carries NFC games and CBS carries AFC games.  Most games are local, so it depends on your local affiliate which team they show.  One of them (I think FOX maybe, but I pay so little attention, I don't know) usually carries a 3:30 game, which I thought was national, i.e., everybody sees it.  

Last week Dallas played an AFC team, and CBS aired it.  Okay, no big confusion, an AFC team was involved, for whatever reasons CBS gets that one.  But this past weekend Dallas played a division rival, most definitely another NFC team, and it was still on CBS (at 3:30).  I don't understand that.  

It's probably not relevant, but it mattered for the following reason.  My wife is a big Cowboys fan and wants to watch Dallas every Sunday.  We live near Beaumont, so in general CBS carries the Texans and FOX carries the Cowboys.  We cut the cord this year, dropping satellite and using Hulu Live TV for the football season.  Hulu offers local channels, but evidently they don't have a contract with the local CBS.  There is no local news at night, and no Texans games airing at noon on Sundays.  Weeknights feature CBS' sitcoms, and Saturdays feature the SEC game of the week, which I know are national for CBS.  The rest of the time it's airing CBS News, pretty much around the clock.  Just these relentless talking heads droning on about world events.  All of which leads me to conclude this is some kind of national CBS station that Hulu offers because for whatever reason they don't have Beaumont's local CBS.  

We weren't able to watch either Cowboys game on CBS as a result.  Last week's game was a noon game, I believe, so that didn't surprise me.  I thought ok, it's a local thing, this version of CBS didn't have it.  But this past week's game was a 3:30 CBS game, which I thought meant everybody gets it, but we didn't.  

So I'm confused on A) why CBS had a game featuring two NFC teams, and B) which games count as "local" and which ones are games everybody gets?  I would've left Hulu by now if they didn't show the SEC Saturday games, and I assumed that meant we should also get national NFL games on Sunday.  

Well sure, but for minimal property taxes when the state government can no longer levy income tax in retirement, I'd almost be willing to put up with....them...us...whatever.......

....if we just had better fall weather and more consistent winters.  



Honestly, it doesn't matter if you're retired or not.  LA's state income tax is not enough to offset how cheap property taxes are once you homestead.  Even with the grocery tax, living in LA just just cheaper than living in TX.  It just happens to look a lot better if you are retired, I'd think.  

Forget property taxes. What it’s really about is total taxes. How much income tax would you pay?  Sales tax? Vehicle tax? Gasoline tax?  And what do you get for your taxes?  I feel fairly good about how the state and county uses our taxes to maintain the roads etc.

My property tax here in small town Texas is about $4k per year. I live in an older (1972) but nice two story home. It’s about 2400 sq ft plus garage. The trick is to protest your taxable value every year.

If I lived outside of town I could knock about $1500 off my tax bill.

what Id like to see is a freeze on prop taxes if owner is 65 or older
living on a fixed income can be a real bummer when property taxes increase

You don't need a set top box to receive local channels in HD.  You just need a TV with a digital HD tuner in it (most TVs sold in the past 6-8 years do), and you need an antenna.  

I have no idea what states might charge as an income tax. Sales tax plays into it as well.  I don't know whether or not it's cheaper to live in small town Louisiana compared to small town Texas.  Large, populous, and popular cities like Houston, Dallas, and Austin are likely more expensive to live in than cities in Louisiana, but that's specific to municipalities rather than states.

And this article explains how Dallas-Washington ended up on CBS.  The answer: "Cross-flexing."  

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/10/19/cbs-finally-has-another-redskins-cowboys-game-jim-nantz-is-beside-himself/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.792d7e276345
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/10/19/cbs-finally-has-another-redskins-cowboys-game-jim-nantz-is-beside-himself/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.792d7e276345

I have wanted to see if the hype about the Mohu Leaf is legit.  It's an indoor digital antennae that supposedly has far superior range and power compared to the stuff that's been sold the last ~10 years before it.  If I had the time and money, I believe you can also get an outdoor digital one that mounts on the side of the house, just like the old analog ones.  They supposedly have far superior range to the indoor digital antennas as well.  

Don't tell my wife, but I'm not THAT interested in doing something about it.  I don't care about the NFL, and anyway I see that the rest of the Cowboys games are scheduled to be on FOX, which we have no problems with, and I feel like she should already be grateful that I don't bogart the TV on Saturdays when Texas plays.  

I don't know much about Hulu or the network ties, but I do know you can buy one of those $20 HD boxes from Best Buy and get ALL the local channels that way, without having to pay an additional service for streaming or cable.   It's basically a one-time purchase and you get some 30 local channels that have the same programming as the CBS/FOX/NBC showing on those paying for cable.      I can vouch that the same game playing on CBS on the HD box is the same game playing on my cable listing for CBS.   Just FYI, or maybe you already knew that, but at any rate, it's the cheapest way to watch the main channels in HD without paying anything more than the equipment cost.

put up a digital antenna, don't even need a fancy box

and consider yerself blessed if you didn't get to watch the Cowboys game

Like I said before, I have no idea what states charge for income tax, having never had an official residence outside of Texas.  Is it 1%?  Is it 10%?

I can't speak for anyone else, but I'll say that any state income tax in Texas higher than 4-5% would absolutely cost me more than my state/municipal property taxes.  And I live in a pretty heavily taxed location.