Sports organizations like FIFA, the worldwide soccer organization, have been against using television video replay for reversing an official's on-the-field decision. Yet these sports groups have no problem taking money from TV networks for the right to broadcast events around the world. There seems to be a bit of hypocrisy here. Sports leagues shouldn't be able to monetize their worth using TV while dismissing one of TV's key features, the replay.

Soccer, with its long heritage in Europe, Latin America, and other parts of the world, always seemed like a sports poised for a break-out in the U.S. Now we have a U.S. men's team again getting to the quarter finals and showing some competitive kick in its loss to Ghana, with the biggest TV ratings ever for a soccer event: 19 million viewers. But odds are U.S. soccer won't take the ball and run with it, even after almost two decades of ramped-up efforts in high schools, colleges, and kids' leagues.

The Motion Pictures Association of America looks like it got what it wanted: a final nail in the coffin of those who would start up a movies future business. But the ban isn't really about financial gambling. It's really a ban on information that perhaps the movie-going public should be allowed to have.

Some Fox TV stations newscasts are guilty-by-brand association. Not that advertisers' really care.

In somewhat of a surprise, a federal judge dismissed Viacom's billion-dollar lawsuit against YouTube. Viacom is appealing. All this would seem like a big win for the little guy -- except YouTube really isn't the little guy. YouTube is part of a very big, powerful and growing media company: Google.

Television production by a committee of professionals? It never works. So why would a bunch of viewers do any better? Syfy is working up a two-hour Saturday original movie to which viewers will contribute by voting: casting ideas, story arcs, characters, whatever. It's a nice publicity/marketing stunt. But if viewers truly contribute equally, we know how this stuff would end up: in one big mush.

Don't throw away those bland commercials, roughly targeted TV media plans, and general wishful thinking: Set-top-box data ain't what it appears.

So I'm driving in a rental Toyota Camry to a convention in Las Vegas. About an hour and a half into the drive, I'm cruising along -- maybe at a quicker speed than I realized -- rushing to get to my location. Then it dawns on me what the Enterprise staffer told me back at the rental office: "Yes. This Camry is good. It accelerates nicely." Wait a second. Toyota? Camry? Acceleration? Hello!

Now that the TV upfront is over, we can focus on the usual and the not-so-usual: This would be the scatter markets. More strangely, it would also include the absence of TV networks' typical high-flying bravado of years ago.

A small segment of young consumers isn't ready to anoint content as king. The price of that content may actually be taking that crown, instead.