Five People That Had A Worse Weekend Than You: Goodbye, Football

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Listen, I know I normally write some witty intro to this column, telling you about my weekend, like you care what the hell I did with my 48 hours of freedom from the office. But let’s be honest: we’re all hungover from Super Bowl parties, so let’s just skip all that for this week and get right to it, okay?

CBS & NBC

With all of the competition for network TV, there is one bright spot that they seem to have a monopoly on: live sports. But while sports, and in particular football, are a ratings bonanza for the networks, they aren’t exactly money makers. Prime example: the new deal for “Thursday Night Football” made by CBS and NBC last week.

The networks paid a reported $450 million for the rights to TNF, with each network airing five games this upcoming season for approximately $45 million a game. But after estimating that CBS lost over $200 million from contracts for TNF the last two seasons (direct ad revenues less rights fees and production costs), Morgan Stanley analyst Benjamin Swinburne predicts that each network will actually “lose $21.5 million per broadcast for a total decline of $107.5 million for each network next year,” according to The Business Insider.

Ouch. [Via Business Insider]

New Zealand Politician Steven Joyce

Two words that you probably don’t think go together: “flying penis.” So obviously, I clicked on the story from the New York Post that featured those words in the headline, and read the story of a very bizarre protest in New Zealand.

New Zealand minister Steven Joyce was at one of the country’s most historic sites, Waitingi, talking to reporters about the Trans Pacific Partnership economic agreement, which is currently under negotiation, when a protestor hurled a dildo at the politician. I can’t top the Post’s description of what happened next so, we’ll just got with that:

“It slapped against his lips and bounced off a nearby reporter’s breasts — before falling limply at their feet.”

The protester didn’t give a reason for her choice of weapon, only saying ““With the signing coming up next week, I thought it was really important that we take a really strong stand against this to protect the people of New Zealand, really. I’m here as a nurse because I’m worried about the patient rights and how many people will essentially die if this goes through because the price of medication’s going up, so yeah, it’s something I feel really strongly about.”

All I have to say: I hope that thing was new…or Joyce may need some of that more-expensive medication to treat some lip herpes. [Via New York Post]

The Stage Manager at The Republican Debate

I didn’t watch Saturday’s Republican primary debate because frankly, I have better things to do. Okay, TBH, I usually don’t have anything better to do on a Saturday night besides watch SVU, but I did happen to be out this particular Saturday, so I missed it. According to The Washington Post, the debate had some winners (Donald Trump, Ted Cruz) and losers (Marco Rubio), but perhaps there was no greater loser than whoever was in charge of getting the candidates out onto the stage. Because this happened:

Can I declare Jeb Bush a winner just for making that face? [Via The Washington Post]

Meek Mill

A lot of us think that being forced to stay in the house for some subset of time would be awesome. Lazing around, watching TV, eating crap…sounds great, right? Well, I recently did that (minus the eating crap) for two weeks following surgery, and by day eight, I was so bored I actually finished an entire adult coloring book.

And now rapper Meek Mill is about to reach those levels of boredom, and whole lot more. Despite telling the judge that “I believe I can be the bright star you expect me to be,” Nicki Minaj’s boyfriend was sentenced to 90-days house arrest on Friday for violating his parole for the fourth time in eight years. And before you get excited about the record he could drop after those three months, hold up: according to Us Weekly, “Mill is prohibited from recording, releasing or performing music while he is under house arrest.”

I guess Mill will finally have time to catch up on all of those episodes of Locked Up on his DVR, which is a good thing since it’s probably only a matter of time. [Via Us Weekly]

Cam Newton

I’m just going to leave this here.

Yup. .

Image via Twitter

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Jenna Crowley

Jenna used to be known as 2NOTBrokeGirls, but then one of the girls actually went broke, so she's struck out on her own. Jenna spends her free time saving the world, one sorority girl at a time (usually while wearing yoga pants), questioning why she decided to get a doctorate, documenting her love of all things cheese related, and hosting the new PGP podcast Don't Take It From Us. You can ask her anything you want about football, using your boobs to get what you want, and pizza at @JennaLCrowley on Twitter or via email at JennaLCrowley@gmail.com.

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