The NFL's ratings crisis

Did I see a news item the other day about ESPN's market penetration dropping below 75 percent? That's got to be part of the MNF drop - and Gruden.

 

The Monday Night Football broadcasting crew is basically unwatchable. Or unlistenable. Or unbearable. Take your pick -- or choose all three!

 

Unfortunately, the League no longer has a presidential election to blame for the slide continuing this year.

 

I think the Kaepernick stuff hurt more than any of us want to acknowledge. It doesn't explain all of the drop, but it is a factor.

But I think all the cord cutting stuff is leading to people not just watching content differently, but watching less overall, and being pickier about what they do devote time to watching.

 

I think some of it is when people don't watch for a bit - and realize they don't miss it - they realize they can live without it. And they do. I took a job once that required me to work on Sundays and it killed me not to watch football - but then I started watching the highlight shows and figured I didn't miss much.

 

So the ratings are down. Call it 20%. Call it because of the Kaepernick thing.

What am I supposed to do with that information? Does it effect me, an NFL fan, in the least?

What if the ratings are down 20% because a lot of Trump voters in flyover country are pissed. And say it trickles down to a 20% reduction in NFL revenue, and eventually, a 20% reduction in salaries for the players.

Am I still going to be able to watch the games? I think the answer is yes.
Are they still going to play the games? I think the answer is yes.

 

I think it's simple. Our attention spans are fried and technology now offers more interactive forms of entertainment. We can't watch entire baseball games. It's why even football — which is five-second chunks of legalized violence — now bores us. Forms of entertainment where we don't personally control the action will become less and less engaging to our minds. Movies, sports, television, where we don't control the storyline are quite soon going to seem as quaint and boring as a game of Pong does to a teenager today.

Fantasy football and gambling, for a time, filled that need in connection to sports. I think the buzz from that will go away, too.

 

I don't see how the Kaepernick situation could still be hurting ratings now, since he is out of the league and obviously being blackballed by all 32 owners. Cord cutting is obviously a factor. I think one factor that doesn't get enough attention is that it's still nice out most places, so people do outdoor things on September Sundays. Also. any old NFL is no longer an event when they're on for like 11 hours on Sundays plus two weekday night games. You can learn all you need to know for your fantasy team online in seconds. The NFL's big advantage was getting fans to watch games in which they had no natural rooting interest. Now it may be more like baseball, where fans will watch their home team's game, but not so many others.

 

This has been me over the last few years as my kids have gotten older. I am even off the hi-light shows. I figure I can take the kids to soccer/hockey/basketball or just generally get out of the house or they can watch me watch TV. As an older Dad with little kids I don't want to be the couch Dad. Same reason why I probably won't golf for the next 10 years. Minimum $75 and 4 hour commitment. Have better uses for the time and money.

 

Jay-Z boycotting the NFL?

 

It's easy to see labor strife at the end of this. Could it result in a strike or lockout? I don't know about the NFL, the union is weak and players know how short their window is. But I think the pie gets substantially smaller in the next round of negotiations.

 

Every Saturday for me is like March Madness Thursday afternoon. I get 31-36 college football games a Saturday on my satellite.

I flip all over, charting wherever the action is the most exciting.

On Sunday, I get four.

If the Sam Rosen Game or the Kenny Albert Game early is 13-0 early, I'm down to three games.

I'll generally only watch the last hour of the early college kickoffs and the last 90 minutes of the afternoon games. That's my attention span and also so I can still be a good dad.