Short the NFL?

[BuffaloBill]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michael-lewis-author-moneyball-short-nfl-135810598.html

 

Author of Moneyball points out the NFL is having problems in its business model.  Primarily states that viewership is down and sentiment is becoming problematic due to CTE and protest issues.

 

 

 

[wiskibreth]

For me, it's the sheer volume of commercials and advertising, bad rules that imbalance the game on top of bad officiating and poor announcers.  The player's risk of CTE and protests don't enter into my viewership decision making at all.

[yungmack]

It peaked some time ago, before protests and cte. Viewership, that is. Financial growth is largely horizontal and not based on growing viewership. I am interested to see what TV offers in the next contracts, ESPN/ABC in particular. Cord cutting and general resistance to increased fees from ESPN by cable companies is a hot topic right now.

 

This is not restricted to the NFL. NASCAR is down something like 40% from its peak viewership and attendance has plunged so much that grandstands are eliminating seating. MLB viewing is down. Don't know if the NBA, NHL or college football is up or down, but based on anecdotal info, enthusiasm for all of these are way down.

Edited November 8, 2017 by yungmack

[BringMetheHeadofLeonLett]

29 minutes ago, wiskibreth said:

For me, it's the sheer volume of commercials and advertising, bad rules that imbalance the game on top of bad officiating and poor announcers.  The player's risk of CTE and protests don't enter into my viewership decision making at all.

That boy is a P-I-G

 

And I agree with every word

 

Where is Jerry Markbright, and that ref who used to call Hoding

 

Where's Pat Summerall, Don Criqui and Merlin Olson

 

Seriously, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are the top duo on the NFC network???  

 

Between the rules, the refs and the announcers, the game's lost its personality.

 

... or at least strangled it pretty hard.  

Edited November 8, 2017 by BringMetheHeadofLeonLett

[dpberr]

There's too much of it on TV and its had a decline in quality.  

 

There are many parallels between the fate of the Simpsons TV show and the NFL when you think about it.  

 

The longer it's around the less people care about it, and ultimately it becomes a shadow of its former self, just hanging on for hanging on's sake.

 

 

 

 

[Wayne Arnold]

I'm losing interest (slowly) due to the lack of parity from the over-reliance on quarterback play which is made worse by the fact that quarterbacks are over-protected and can play well into their 40's.

 

Many fans of certain teams feel they have no hope so what's the point?

[D. L. Hot-Flamethrower]

Agree with most everyone. I would add that from a personal standpoint.....the game is imbalanced too much in favor of the passing game/QB....too many ridiculous replays.

[Bullpen]

39 minutes ago, BuffaloBill said:

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/michael-lewis-author-moneyball-short-nfl-135810598.html

 

Author of Moneyball points out the NFL is having problems in its business model.  Primarily states that viewership is down and sentiment is becoming problematic due to CTE and protest issues.

 

 

 

For me one of the things (among a few) is NFL fatigue really.  The NFL seems to always be trying to force feed me every single event as "THE EVENT" the schedule reveal, the pro bowl roster reveal, combine, etc... They are trying to make the NFL part of every single day's 24 hour news cycle. There are two radio stations in Denver that are essentially 24/7/365 Broncos talk regardless of the season (and the Rockies had a very successful season).  At a certain point, you just say, enough is enough.

 

It's like that friend that you have that's constantly trying get you to watch a certain TV series. You can only hear how great some show is before you finally just say, "Dude, I'm not gonna watch it, let it go." 

[LA Grant]

I think an easy solution would be to add one or two more Bye weeks for teams. Everyone in the NFL agrees the current schedule, especially with TNF, is far too grueling for players.

 

Giving players more time to recover = fewer injuries = more star players = better games. The length of the regular NFL season would be longer, but more palatable for players, and a longer season means more ratings for the TV carriers.

 

Adding 1-2  more Bye weeks is an easy, moderate solution, but I think you could go even further and have teams only play every other week, meaning they get a week off between each game. Split the NFL schedule in half, basically -- every game that week gets more attention then. For scheduling purposes, sometimes teams would need to play two weeks in a row, but somehow you could make it work so every team has an equal number of weeks off. 

 

Obviously this would double the length of the season, so you'd need to start earlier and end later, and there's less time in the offseason, but I think this makes sense for everyone too -- easier for players to stay in shape, and fewer injuries related to poor conditioning.

 

 

[White Linen]

The casual fan is temperamental and can easily be swayed for a myriad of different reasons.  The NFL struck while the iron was hot which was smart.  We'll see if they were smart enough to project the inevitable decline and push hard to satisfy/identify the base.  

 

[TheFunPolice]

Too many prime time games. TNF has oversaturated the market.

 

To me that is problem #1. MNF is now meaningless. The games are awful almost every week. You don't hear a lady singing "Monday night's about to happen..." because nobody cares about watching crappy games with zero sizzle on MNF when there are thousands of other options on cable, streaming, etc.

 

A close second is the refs are ruining the games. Non-stop penalties. When there is a big play you have to delay your excitement to make sure there aren't any flags, because it seems like 9/10 special teams returns of any kind have a holding or block in the back penalty. Huge play on defense? NOPE! Illegal contact, automatic 1st down! Team has 3rd and 27, runs a simple draw for 3 yards and you're off the field?! Nope. Illegal hands to the face on some DL. First down!

 

What is a catch? Did the ball bobble? All this non-stop debate over plays is killing the sport. Call only the most obvious penalties and stop sucking the life out of the game with fantom holding calls that take points and exciting plays off the board.

 

[Watkins90]

20 minutes ago, White Linen said:

The casual fan is temperamental and can easily be swayed for a myriad of different reasons.  The NFL struck while the iron was hot which was smart.  We'll see if they were smart enough to project the inevitable decline and push hard to satisfy/identify the base.  

 

Right, it is pure economics. The NFL was only going to get so popular, and then start to decline at that point. The game isn't dying, just some people are losing interest. 

[TheFunPolice]

There is a limit to how many people will watch and how much $$ there is to make. That's why the league wants to go international. The US market is pretty much tapped out.

 

 

[Happy]

The quality of the NFL games has gone down from even just a couple of years ago.

 

Games are being dragged out when pretty much every play is scrutinized by review.  Too many rules that limit the play of the defensive side of the ball; almost impossible to play defense anymore.  Also, the NFL is constantly in your face; some of this has to do with the emergence of NFLN, and the Thursday night games which need to go.

 

In my opinion, the protests and politics is speeding up the NFL's demise.  Most people want to watch and follow football to get away from the rest of the world for a few hours, and not be barraged by politics, color rush, thug culture, etc.

 

This has all happened under Goodell's watch.  His reign as Commissioner needs to come to an end and get someone in there who will restore a more traditional NFL game without all the extraneous nonsense.  I actually agree with Jerry Jones that Goodell's contract extension should be blocked.  First time I've ever agreed with Jerruh.

[section122]

I guess this is as good a place as any to put this as I have been opining about it...

 

Here is how I would help viewership for the NFL.

 

1.  Thursday games are reserved solely for teams coming off of byes and I would schedule 2 games each week to help have a matchup that people are interested in.  I know this has been discussed but I think the league could do it by

2.  Adding a second bye.  This would stretch the season out a bit and give players more rest while giving the NFL more Sundays to put programming on.

3.  Staggered start times.  Think about the first few days of the NCAA tournament.  There are games running all day Thursday and Friday and seemingly games ending one right after another.  This is a great design.  Instead of all games being a 1 or 4/4:25 start, Have games start at 1, 1:30, 2:00, 2:30 and then again at 4, 4:30, 5.  This would keep eyeballs on the league longer as their would be games that were close to the end from 4-5:30 and then again from 7-8 which would lead right into SNF.  This would allow fans to see more teams and dominate Sunday.

4.  MNF would be similar to Thursday in that I would have 2 games.  East coast game starts at 7 West Coast game starts at 9:30.  

5.  Limit the amount of prime time games teams can have.  How many times were the Giants on primetime to start the season?  

6.  Start flexing games earlier in the season.  I think giving upstart teams primetime games would help with fatigue from watching the same teams over and over.

 

What do you guys think?

Edited November 8, 2017 by section122

[Augie]

1 hour ago, BringMetheHeadofLeonLett said:

That boy is a P-I-G

 

And I agree with every word

 

Where is Jerry Markbright, and that ref who used to call Hoding

 

Where's Pat Summerall, Don Criqui and Merlin Olson

 

Seriously, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman are the top duo on the NFC network???  

 

Between the rules, the refs and the announcers, the game's lost its personality.

 

... or at least strangled it pretty hard.  

 

I will say I, while I usually just ignore most current announcers, I’ve enjoyed Romo so far. He’s worth listening to, and he has a knack for knowing what’s about to happen. 

[TheFunPolice]

Get rid of TNF. Literally nobody likes it.

 

If they needed more primetime games that badly just do a weekly MNF double header.

[BringMetheHeadofLeonLett]

7 minutes ago, section122 said:

I guess this is as good a place as any to put this as I have been opining about it...

 

Here is how I would help viewership for the NFL.

 

1.  Thursday games are reserved solely for teams coming off of byes and I would schedule 2 games each week to help have a matchup that people are interested in.  I know this has been discussed but I think the league could do it by

2.  Adding a second bye.  This would stretch the season out a bit and give players more rest while giving the NFL more Sundays to put programming on.

3.  Staggered start times.  Think about the first few days of the NCAA tournament.  There are games running all day Thursday and Friday and seemingly games ending one right after another.  This is a great design.  Instead of all games being a 1 or 4/4:25 start, Have games start at 1, 1:30, 2:00, 2:30 and then again at 4, 4:30, 5.  This would keep eyeballs on the league longer as their would be games that were close to the end from 4-5:30 and then again from 7-8 which would lead right into SNF.  This would allow fans to see more teams and dominate Sunday.

4.  MNF would be similar to Thursday in that I would have 2 games.  East coast game starts at 7 West Coast game starts at 9:30.  

5.  Limit the amount of prime time games teams can have.  How many times were the Giants on primetime to start the season?  

6.  Start flexing games earlier in the season.  I think giving upstart teams primetime games would help with fatigue from watching the same teams over and over.

 

What do you guys think?

If the networks were NFL affiliates, sure, that'd be great.  Not having the numbers in front of me, I'd imagine the viewership could not pay for the revenue loss of the regular primetime programming, as well as the advertising nationalized which would normally belong to the individual affiliate's sales departments.

[BuffaloBill]

52 minutes ago, LA Grant said:

I think an easy solution would be to add one or two more Bye weeks for teams. Everyone in the NFL agrees the current schedule, especially with TNF, is far too grueling for players.

 

Giving players more time to recover = fewer injuries = more star players = better games. The length of the regular NFL season would be longer, but more palatable for players, and a longer season means more ratings for the TV carriers.

 

Adding 1-2  more Bye weeks is an easy, moderate solution, but I think you could go even further and have teams only play every other week, meaning they get a week off between each game. Split the NFL schedule in half, basically -- every game that week gets more attention then. For scheduling purposes, sometimes teams would need to play two weeks in a row, but somehow you could make it work so every team has an equal number of weeks off. 

 

Obviously this would double the length of the season, so you'd need to start earlier and end later, and there's less time in the offseason, but I think this makes sense for everyone too -- easier for players to stay in shape, and fewer injuries related to poor conditioning.

 

 

 

 

I agree with the addition of an additional bye week.  I would also advocate a shorter pre-season as it is a waste.  Maybe each team plays two preseason games and has one controlled scrimmage and that is it.

[LA Grant]

1 minute ago, BuffaloBill said:

I agree with the addition of an additional bye week.  I would also advocate a shorter pre-season as it is a waste.  Maybe each team plays two preseason games and has one controlled scrimmage and that is it.

 

Yeah, that's a good solution, too.