Stupidity is contagious. It gets us all from time to time. Even respectable companies can catch it. As I do every week, let's take a look at five head-spinningly dumb financial events from the past seven days.

1. Why call for a Hail Mary when a flea flicker will do?
DirecTV (NYSE:DTV) will continue to attract pro football fans, now that the satellite television giant has extended its deal with the National Football League. That would normally be considered good news, but I didn't get around to telling you how much DirecTV will be paying for the rights to the NFL Sunday Ticket.

DirecTV is already paying a steep $700 million a year to the NFL. When the next contract kicks in, DirecTV will have to pay an annual ransom of $1 billion. A 43% spike in football programming costs is steep, especially since consumers are already beginning to wean themselves off of costly television subscriptions. True, football fans can be rabid, but this assumes that DirecTV will have amazing pricing flexibility with its gridiron-loving faithful, or that it expects a healthy bump in subscribers in a few years.

Sorry, but I think it's going to drop the ball on both plays. Butterfingers!

2. The Apple doesn't fall far from the free
If a 43% spike in NFL rights doesn't hit too close to home, how about a 30% hike in what you're paying for music on iTunes? Record label executives are telling the Los Angeles Times that Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL) will let labels begin charging $1.29 for best-selling tracks and select classics on April 7.

Apple has stuck with a flat $0.99-per-track price since the iTunes Store's inception six years ago. But the labels -- never happy with that price point -- finally persuaded Apple to implement variable pricing, in exchange for removing iTunes tracks' anti-piracy restrictions. Unfortunately, there is no inflation for the pirated equivalent of a legal download. Apple had gone public with its intentions to offer variable pricing -- at $0.69, $0.99, and $1.29 price points -- earlier this year, but the timing now just seems terrible.

The economy is smarting, and Apple decides to grant the labels their pricing increase now? It doesn't have to offer up recessionary specials like 50 Cent for $0.50, but at least it could hold the line.

The $0.69 price point is certainly appealing, though, and I'm sure the labels that are laughing now will be crying when consumers flock to the cheaper tracks instead.

3. Hitting the "pause" button on video game retailing
GameStop (NYSE:GME) posted better-than-expected quarterly results yesterday, but the stock still bucked the buoyant trend, falling on the day.

So what's eating GameStop? Maybe it's this week's unveiling of OnLive, a cloud computing solution for diehard gaming that threatens both bricks-and-mortar retail and the console makers themselves.

OnLive already has most of the major video game developers on board, won over by the merits of inventory-free digital distribution and the lack of resales that have eaten into their profits. Since OnLive stores the high-end games on own its fleet of servers, gamers need only a healthy Internet connection, and either their own computers or an OnLive "mini-console."

Like most upstarts, OnLive has a long uphill climb ahead if it seriously wants to contend. However, any kind of disruptive uncertainty doesn't sit well with investors in companies like GameStop, even if those businesses are growing nicely in this wicked economy. 

4. Back in Focus
Investors have been warming up to Focus Media (NASDAQ:FMCN) this week, driving the stock 21% higher despite its uninspiring quarterly results. China's advertising giant posted revenue and adjusted profits that fell short of Wall Street expectations.

So why did GameStop drop on a win, while Focus Media soared on a miss? Perhaps the market is realizing the true value of SINA's (NASDAQ:SINA) proposed buyout of Focus Media's healthiest advertising subsidiaries, in exchange for 47 million shares of SINA. The deal is expected to close during the second quarter.

Mr. Market is valuing Focus Media for less than the SINA stake that the company will be distributing to its shareholders, making the market the dummy here. However, investors need to be nimble at this point. The shell that Focus Media will become after the SINA purchase is complete isn't very appealing, with Focus Media expecting a 36% sequential decline in revenue from its continuing operations this quarter.

In short, you have to know when to buy, but also when to sell.

5. Built to last, but not to Last.fm
Online radio site Last.fm, owned by CBS (NYSE:CBS), will begin charging listeners outside of the United States, United Kingdom, and Germany for access. Why the need to draw geographical lines? The company has to pay music royalties on its streams, and it can't afford to maintain ad-supported models in regions beyond the three countries in which free access will remain.

This sort of arrangement rarely ends well. CBS is competing against companies such as Pandora, Slacker, and Time Warner's (NYSE:TWX) AOL Music, all of which pump out free Internet radio. Few listeners abroad are likely to pay, and even stateside users may begin weaning themselves off the service if they feel that charges are coming to their neck of the woods in the future.

So is it OK to say that charging for Internet radio is a Last.fm resort?

Let's beat the dumb drum: