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The NFL's ratings crisis

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by LongTimeListener, Oct 17, 2016.

  1. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    I agree with a lot of the points made here, especially the oversaturation point. There used to be a flow to the week in the fall ... I used to look forward to that Thursday night college game to get things started. It felt special, like appointment viewing. Now, as has been pointed out, the MAC is playing Tuesdays and the Sun Belt is playing Wednesdays. There are multiple college games on Thursdays. Friday night, I covered a prep game. Saturday, I worked and watched a ton of college games. Sunday, I got to let go and drink a few beers and watch the 1-7 window. If my team isn't involved, I rarely watch the Sunday night game because I'm honestly footballed out at that point and want to settle in and watch an HBO show for a nightcap. I haven't watched a minute of Monday Night Football outside of the Redskins-Steelers opener.

    And the in-person experience is torture, and the team I root for might have the worst such experience in the league. FedEx is just terrible. It's close to nothing. Snyder up charges everything. The drunken buffoonery is exhausting. I go to a handful of NHL and MLB games a year, and the in-game experience is just so much superior that I would never consider going to an NFL game in person again. I'm not dropping several hundred dollars for that.
     
  2. swingline

    swingline Well-Known Member

    Yeah, Monday Night Football used to be an all-caps EVENT. Now it's just another game that I never watch.
     
  3. Twirling Time

    Twirling Time Well-Known Member

    MNF in its heyday also had Cosell, Gifford and Meredith in the booth and made even the worst blowout watchable.
     
  4. Michael_ Gee

    Michael_ Gee Well-Known Member

    Any sport has a problem when most people would rather not see a game in person.
     
    exmediahack and FileNotFound like this.
  5. Dick Whitman

    Dick Whitman Well-Known Member

    I was going to write something along these lines. Who has the time? There were only so many years in a row I could tell my wife, "We can't go do that fun thing on a beautiful fall afternoon. Jacksonville is playing Philadelphia!"
     
    bigpern23, misterbc and swingline like this.
  6. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    Yep. This Sunday was a perfect example. Met some friends for brunch and the 1 p.m. games. Other friends were at a brewery watching live music. It was a gorgeous day. Skipped out on the late games to go watch music.
     
  7. poindexter

    poindexter Well-Known Member

    Its red zone for me, or I dvr a game and watch it an hour and a half in.

    There is no fucking way I am sitting through all those breaks in action. College or pro.
     
  8. The Big Ragu

    The Big Ragu Moderator Staff Member

    Wading into this late. I also believe they went too far and there is oversaturation. From a short-term dollar persecptive, it made sense. By splitting the TV contract, handing out more games, etc., they were able to keep the pot of money growing. They may pay for that -- like a hot restaurant chain that cashes in and overexpands, and all of a sudden it isn't cool anymore and there are way too many of them.

    Also, the concussion stuff is definitely having an impact. At the same time that interest in the NFL may be rolling over, you have participation rates in youth football falling dramatically. It's all related. Mom doesn't want her kid playing. The kid is less interested. Overall interest wanes.

    I am not predicting this, but I do think this may prove to be an inflection point for the NFL after a particularly good 25 year period that essentially began with Paul Tagliabue and ran into the present.
     
  9. sgreenwell

    sgreenwell Well-Known Member

    I agree with all of this.

    I feel odd about the concussion stuff myself. I know ultimately, by the time we're talking about pro football, everyone is 20+ years old and (nowadays) has made a conscious decision to risk injury. But still, it's just grisly to realize that a good portion of the guys I'm watching will probably 1) suffer from pain the rest of their life, once they retire and 2) deal with depression, brain damage and potentially dementia. I still watch the NFL, but I now cringe at the big hits, whereas 10 years ago I wouldn't have.
     
  10. TheSportsPredictor

    TheSportsPredictor Well-Known Member

    Why would games on Thursday or Sunday night or Monday night make you not want to watch games on Sunday?

    Answer -- they don't.

    Ratings are mostly up for the early Sunday game, down for everything else: The NFL TV Ratings Page — Sports Media Watch

    People are generally watching the early Sunday games, then tuning out.
     
  11. Small Town Guy

    Small Town Guy Well-Known Member

    I don't know if the on-field product has much to do with it overall. Last year's rankings were ridiculously high. Record-breaking. The quality, or lack of it, was the same. Deitsch at the end of last season had a story about how there's no ceiling on NFL ratings in the near-future.

    So I think it's probably a combination of everything mentioned here and elsewhere along with a simple, well, they can't go up forever. And they might be down this year but they'll probably go up again at the end of the year. Or not.
     
  12. Cosmo

    Cosmo Well-Known Member

    Absolutely. It's easy to commit to one three-plus hour window, watch a bunch of games at once at a bar and then move on to something else. It's basically the way I've watched this year.
     
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