Earlier this month, WMB and WoW both reported on NFL restrictions that prohibited churches from showing the Super Bowl on big-screen TVs. In a letter to Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, a vocal critic of the policy, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wrote that the league would no longer object to churches showing the Super Bowl — regardless of screen size — as long as no admission is charged and the event is held at a place the church uses on a “routine and customary” basis. “[The NFL has] decided to set aside profit for community spirit,” Pastor Steve Holley of Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Va., told The Washington Post. “I’m encouraged by that.”

Since way back on August 5, when the Steelers marched over the Saints in the Hall of Fame game, you football fans out there have had gridiron action to look forward to nearly every weekend. Now that the Giants have pulled the big Super Bowl upset over the no-longer-perfect Pats and another weekend’s upon us, where do you sports fans turn your attention? Yeah, I know, the Pro Bowl will be played in the land of leis tomorrow afternoon, but does that count? (I don’t think so.) Glancing through the “Sports on TV” section of USA Today, here are your options:

• Boxing: Welterweights rock ’em and sock ’em tonight in California.
• Bull riding: The PBR series bucks its way into Anaheim this weekend.
• Bowling: The PBA sets its pins up in El Paso tomorrow.
• Tennis: The United States will be volleying in Vienna in Davis Cup action against Austria today and tomorrow.
• Golf: Choose from the PGA European Tour in India (I think there’s somewhat of a geography problem there), the Champions (a.k.a. “seniors”) Tour in Boca, and the PGA Tour’s best playing alongside a gaggle of celebrity hackers at Pebble Beach.
• College basketball: Both the men and the women will tip it off in a number of TV games across the country this weekend, wrapping it all up tomorrow night with the Clemson men trying to put an end to their school’s amazing streak of futility (0-52) against North Carolina in Chapel Hill. With Tar Heel point guard Ty Lawson ailing, this may be the year for the Tigers.
• Pro basketball: ABC and ESPN will offer 11 consecutive hours of men in long shorts tomorrow.
• Motor sports: The NHRA’s Winternationals power up in Ponoma, Calif., while NASCAR’s 2008 season gets into gear tonight in Daytona with the Budweiser Shootout followed by pole qualifying tomorrow afternoon for next Sunday’s 500.
• Oh yeah, and there’s a hockey game on Sunday: Ducks and Wings (sounds kind of fowl).

But if you still need a taste of NFL action, skip the Pro Bowl and tune in tonight to the Gospel Music Channel, where you can catch Giants Super Bowl star receiver David Tyree and players from every team in the league singing together in a gospel choir.

At the close of yesterday’s Super Bowl, American church auditoriums were among the few places deader than the New England Patriots’ bench. For the past two years, party-pooper NFL attorneys have worked to clamp down on unauthorized screenings of the game in public. Ironically, thanks to copyright law, the more churches upsize to vogue JumboTrons and giant flat-screen TVs, the fewer will be using their newfound devices for Super Bowl parties.

The Washington Post and The Wall Street Journal both reported on the NFL’s blockade in the lead-up to yesterday’s game. “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 Post said. “The section of federal copyright law giving the NFL protection over the content of its programming exempts sports bars, NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said.”

Officially, a church violates the NFL’s rules if it does, inter alia, any of the following: (1) charges admission, which violates copyright law; (2) screens the game on any TV or projector of more than 55 inches, or on any two TVs or projectors, period; (3) promotes any kind of message; or (4) uses the words “Super Bowl” to advertise the event, which violates trademark law. (Churches bent on circumventing the latter have called events “Superb Owl” parties.)

McCarthy told the Post that public places like auditoriums and movie theaters are prohibited from showing NFL games because big-screen events “could eat into television ratings and erode broadcasters’ advertising rates.”

But bars and restaurants that typically run sports programming on their TVs got an exemption years ago. Critics don’t see why they are special. Yesterday Sen. Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania, told CNN’s “Late Edition” that he sees “absolutely no reason why you ought to be able to have a big screen in a bar but not in church, where a church is having a social event.” Rep. Heath Shuler, a Democrat from North Carolina and a former Washington Redskin, pressed NFL commissioner Roger Goodell directly for an exemption. Last year, when the debate began after the NFL preempted a party at Fall Creek Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Ind., for about 400 churchgoers, lefty MSNBC talk-show host Keith Olbermann even gave the “No Fun League” a silver “Worst Person in the World” medal.

Years ago, when I was a mere child, the Super Bowl was played on Sunday afternoon. Then, with higher ratings and ad revenues to be had, its time slot slipped toward prime time, causing a conflict for those who observed the Christian Sabbath by going to Sunday evening services.

At first, churches resisted, keeping to their usual schedule. But after a few years of dwindling numbers, pastors began to see the Super Bowl as a community outreach opportunity, inviting members, especially youth, to bring their unchurched friends to the fellowship hall for an evening of food, fellowship, and football. And as the audio and video capabilities in these houses of worship have improved, so has the allure of these events. Where else in town could you go to watch mighty gridiron warriors larger than life on a six-foot screen that a few hours earlier had beamed the words to “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God”?

Of course, there were the GoDaddy.com ads and halftime wardrobe malfunctions to avoid, usually with an alternative, football-themed evangelistic video or two to take their places. But it looks like these outreach opportunities have been snuffed out. No, not by some angry, legalistic deacons or elders, but by the National Football League.

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It’s happened only once in the NFL, when the 1972 Miami Dolphins, coached by Don Shula and led by the running of Larry Csonka and Mercury Morris along with the always tough “No-Name Defense,” defeated the Washington Redskins in Super Bowl VII.

In NCAA men’s basketball, it’s been accomplished by seven teams, the last time back in 1976, when the Indiana Hoosiers, led by coach Bobby Knight and the trio of Scott May, Kent Benson, and Quinn Buckner, took care of Big Ten rival Michigan in the NCAA tournament championship game. (The other six were San Francisco in 1956, North Carolina in ’57, and John Wooden’s UCLA teams in ’64, ’67, ’72, and ’73.)

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