The NFL's ratings crisis

I would argue that tennis points are longer because no one goes to the net, which guarantees the point will end right there. They don't go to the net BECAUSE the players hit the ball so much harder.

Don't have any stats to back this up, however.

 

I also believe that the rules changes favoring offense, especially passing, which were designed to increase fan interest, actually may have the opposite effect. The quarterback's role keeps getting more and more important. As there have never been enough good quarterbacks to go around, fans of many teams know their heroes are doomed before the preseason ends. Why watch them take another beating or lose a boring almost close one? Why truck to the stadium to sit in November rain and December sleet?

 

Five of the 10 highest rated TV series last year were NFL.
What Were the Most-Watched Shows of the 2016-2017 Season?

Crisis time.

on a side note, who knew TV Guide existed, in any format?

 

NFL players may be the best, and there can be interest in watching the people who are best at a given activity perform that activity; however, I don't think that interest is a given.

I doubt that Bob Ross was 'the best' painter, but I liked to watch him paint.
I do not believe that Jerry Garcia was 'the best' guitar player, but I liked to listen to him play.

Conversely, the world championships and/or Olympics might feature the best shot putters, but I don't want to watch them perform.
NASCAR may feature the best cars built by the best engineers and mechanics, and those cars may contain people that fans pretend are important to the competition, but I don't want to watch a NASCAR race.

 

I lost count of how many NFL football games were in the top 100.
The 100 most-watched TV programs of 2016: Super Bowl 50 leads by a mile

Somebody is watching it!

 

C'mon man. You've gone over it yourself, the insane amounts paid for a single NFL prime-time telecast. The problem is advertisers got shafted last year, and presumably the rates have dropped for this year and will continue to drop. There's a whole lot of dough to make just to get to break-even.

 

This speaks to my point that while NFL ratings might be declining, other forms of programming are declining even faster. The networks and cable companies have never had the gumption to stand fast on rights when negotiating with the NFL. When one says "we can't pay that" and gives up those rights, then I'll believe the league has a problem.

 

My issue is, why do I care? Why do you care?
If everybody's revenue dropped by 40%, the networks, the league, the players - would it still not be incredibly successful? I'm supposed to be upset if the Super Bowl only attracts 65 million viewers? I'm supposed to be upset if Roger Goodell's salary drops from $40 million a year to $24 million a year? I am supposed to care if that dipshit running the 49ers clears 60 million instead of $100 million in net income? I'm supposed to care if Kirk Cousins has to settle for $15 million a year? I'm supposed to care if generic wide receiver doesn't have a shark tank with a live shark, in his basement?

If the revenue dropped by 40%, am I going to get less games? Will they discontinue the red zone?

The red zone gets brought up occasionally here. I watch it completely. I don't turn a network on between 10:00am and 4:30pm. Most of my friends do. If nothing else, a significant percentage of fans do.

That has to help account for the 10:00am and 1:00 pm slot ratings drops.

 

The NFL long since dropped to third in my hierarchy (behind MLB and NBA) for what I call 'bullshit-to-content' ratio. What I like about baseball is that there is content, actual data and stuff, taking place just about every day. In fact, that's almost to baseball's detriment. The game has become so granular that every pitch and every at-bat is handled like a matter of life and death. Some postseason games the last 4-5 years have seemed like Russian novels. However, in the NFL, each team creates actual data 16 times over a 17-week span, so each win or loss is comparable to a week and a half of the MLB schedule. To fill in the blanks, we get bullshit like contrived quarterback controversies, players' exploits in the Goodell and actual legal systems, and who can be more angry for or against Colin Kaepernick, none of which matters a whit to the standings.

Unfortunately, my favorite MLB team is bad and beginning a full-scale rebuild, my favorite NHL team is bad and would like to begin a rebuild if it had any salary cap space, and my favorite NBA team is not the Warriors, Cavaliers or Celtics, so Go Pack Go, I guess.

 

CTE to me is a bigger factor than Kap. Seeing a big hit and knowing what it could do to someone 10-20 years down the road is a huge turnoff. And at the same time, seeing the NFL pay lip service to the issue while playing up the violence (granted, it's the broadcast partners here) is disquieting. We did a series on football injuries a few years back and several of the youth leagues (USA Football was my main source) are going to the heads-up system, but its going to take time for that to work its was to the upper levels.

 

I wonder if it's not the opposite. Most NFL fans are 35-years-old and up. They are watching a different game in terms of hitting than they remember from their youth. Now that hard hitting is being legislated out of the game, I wonder if these people are turning it off because they want to see the hard hits and are disgusted that the NFL is run by wimps now.

 

More people are not watching THE NFL than ever before. The Super Bowl is one of the greatest marketing successes of all time and is an outlier. It's a National Holiday celebrated like Thanksgiving and observed with more verve than the 4th of July. But the regular season is getting boring because it's not fun. I am not into fantasy football. The NFL lacks self awareness but is not without a sense of self importance. And that goes for ESPN and the other gameday media partners. There's no irony or sense of humor. It's overly serious. The interactions between the players the commissioner, the union and the courts is covered with more depth and sense of importance than national defense or economic policy. I just don't give a shit. I've been watching the Giants every Sunday for 50 years and I'll do it for another 50 years. For the 1st 30 years I wouldn't miss an article in the Star Ledger, the Post the Daily New the NYTimes or NFL on CBS. I used to watch a shit ton of ESPN NFL coverage. But I have not watched a pregame show or NFL highlights show in Years. RedZone rules. It's fun. NFL has gone beyond corporate. 3 1/2 games? And glorified 2-hand touch? I wonder if there are less plays per game today than 1977