Is the NFL declining?

[Shaw66]

1 hour ago, Nineforty said:

Speaking only about picture quality:  The picture quality of football games on Prime is the best, imo.. HDR quality on a 4k TV. but there are other broadcasts/feeds where my older SD tv shows the picture better. This is also true for almost all Sabres games for me too. Standard definition is superior.

 

Sometimes when watching via Apple TV box, it definitely does some digital hocus pocus (upscaling) that can cause the football to not be clear (or flicker) and that is annoying as well. Noticed this on other apps as well. 

Thanks. That's quite interesting, seriously, but wasn't what I was talking about. 

 

I'm not a video connoisseur, so I don't notice these things you're talking about. I'm talking primarily about the framing of the picture. Their standard shot of the line of scrimmage presnap is zoomed in a tad, so you feel a little closer to the action. Problem is, the screen feels full of too much stuff, and the action is busier. And other aspects of the visuals are like this - the closeups of players feel more in-my-face.  

 

I think both what you're talking about and what I'm talking about are efforts to use the technology to make the broadcasts more entertaining (addictive?).  And I was interested that someone else said it's the NFL pushing these changes. They should be the ones controlling the output, because it's their product. Whatever they're doing on Thursday night isn't doing it for me. 

[Scott7975]

Its been declining for me for a long time now. I used to watch every game that I could. Now I watch Bills games and maybe some games that affect the Bills playoff stuff.  Thats about it. Between all the bogus flags or one sided refs and another decade of a singular team being the super bowl hero's, it gets old.

[TheFunPolice]

I have had the same experience this year...

 

Typically, Red Zone is appointment TV every Sunday, and it's so much fun following all the games. Then it's WGR all week long on the commute to and from work. Message boards in between. 

 

This season feels sort of flat. I find myself not really watching unless it's the Bills or a primetime game, and often that's just to have something on. I think it's partly that there aren't very many good QBs and also a lot of injuries, so a lot of games are unwatchable. Last night's game was just an awful product watching the Saints deploy a QB who can't do anything. 

 

Too much saturation, not enough star power. Even the Chiefs aren't really that exciting to watch most weeks. They still win, but it's not Mahomes throwing for 50+ TDs on the season type of stuff anymore. 

 

There's also a bunch of mediocre teams and coaches overall. So the more primetime games there are, the more likely we get duds. 

Edited 1 hour ago by TheFunPolice

[SoMAn]

1 hour ago, Shaw66 said:

I'm watching less NFL that I have in recent seasons. Sunday I didn't start watching football until 6 pm or so. I'm less interested, and I think the quality of the product is down, which adds to my disinterest. 

 

I think Prime's broadcasts are terrible and actually leave me less interested in the NFL. They almost encourage me to turn it off. They do some tricked up digital manipulation of the images to give you a more in-your-face-sense to the whole thing, but all it does is make it more difficult to watch the game. I think they do the digital manipulation to try to cover up the fact that their shows are produced more cheaply, with fewer cameras and less talent. Al Michaels and Herbstreet are horrible. Everything about the product I see and hear makes me want to turn it off, and sometimes I do. I turned it on last night late in the third quarter, watched 15 minutes, and turned it off.

 

Bills-Jets on on ESPN on Monday night was a flop, too.  A lot of penalties, and a lot of indecisiveness by the officials really chopped up the pace of the game and the broadcast. And instead of saving the day with quality talk, Buck and Aikman stumbled through the broadcast all out of sync, too. At one point, no one seemed to know which team had taken a timeout, but the refs were proceeding with the game, unaware that everyone lacked this information. And Aikman and Buck were slow to pick up on the problem. Meanwhile, fans wanted to know. And the teams played sloppy, things were too chippy .  Add it all up - bad play, missed opportunities, too many penalties, indecisive officiating, broadcast team that fails to save the show, I can understand why some fans may start saying, "I don't need to watch every game."  It's not very good TV.

 

If I were the NFL, I'd want more control over production. I wouldn't let Prime screw around with the video presentation. 

 

I'd want better, more professional broadcasters from Fox and CBS. The color commentators, particularly, are weak. Former players trying to talk comfortably into a microphone about something meaningful but not too technical for about 25 seconds. That's hard to do, and if a former player is really good at it, he's Michael Strahan or Peyton Manning and he's not going to be doing color commentary.  So, you get a lot of amateurish chatter about the same old things - momentum, smash-mouth football, etc - coming from guys who simply are not professional talkers. I don't know what's to be done about it, but if I were the NFL, I'd be worried that people like me are finding it easier to turn off games. 

 

I said this to a friend of mine who sent me the following, which was published somewhere:

 

One of the reasons I'm less interested is that it still feels like preseason. More so than most years, teams are trying to figure out how to play, and week to week they look really good to really ugly. Denver's defense last night looked spectacular, playing the way the Bills want to play. They had speed at every position, they were getting pressure on the QB every play, challenging the entire offensive line. How much that had to do with the Saints being bad and not having Carr, I don't know. Whether Denver will be playing like that in December is anyone's guess. So, I view these games as expendable. In late November and December, we'll know which teams are at .500 or better, and that's when the real season will start. In the meantime, I don't care all that much what happens except, of course, to the Bills. 

 

And speaking of the Bills, they've given a good example of what I'm talking about. It used to be that teams fixed their rosters in the off-season, and then they played the season. It's almost as though the good teams now don't fix their rosters until October, when they make one or two splashy acquisitions. We spent a lot of time this summer talking about what the Bills' receiver room, and it was all rendered moot when they trade for Cooper. NOW the Bills have the receiver room that they intend to play the season with. In a sense, the first six games have been preseason games. The Bills have been resting their stars - Milano, Miller, Bernard, Cooper, Johnson while they've been giving other guys (Williams, Epenesa and Solomon, Spector, Coleman and MVS, and Lewis) opportunities to work on their games. I know the "rest" they were giving these guys was forced rest, not true rest, but the effect is the same: the Bills have 11 games left, they're 4-2, and in the coming weeks they'll be putting their real starting lineup on the field for the first time.  You can add Oliver and Cook to the list, too. 

 

The real season is about to start. 

I think the comments regarding broadcasts are hitting the target. The production has gotten better in some ways, but maybe a bit over the top with some of the graphics and animation. May be too much sparkle for football. Also, the commentating crews are weak compared to the broadcasters of yesteryear, many of whom were groomed on radio and had the kind of commanding voices that could make mundane trivia interesting to the listener. Where are the Curt Gowdys, Merlin Olsens, Howard Cosells, Charlie Jones, Dick Enberg, Don Criquis, John Maddens, etc. of days gone by? They were storytellers rather than monotone narrators.  

For me, the game itself is as good as ever, as long as the zebras haven't hijacked the action as they did this past Monday. The TV viewing is not as compelling. Is it because I'm older and don't get as amped up for things like watching a game? Maybe. But, I still think in spite of superior TV picture, angles, replays, the TV experience doesn't seem as exciting as it used to be, largely because of the boring broadcast teams. 

[TheFunPolice]

1 minute ago, SoMAn said:

I think the comments regarding broadcasts are hitting the target. The production has gotten better in some ways, but maybe a bit over the top with some of the graphics and animation. May be too much sparkle for football. Also, the commentating crews are weak compared to the broadcasters of yesteryear, many of whom were groomed on radio and had the kind of commanding voices that could make mundane trivia interesting to the listener. Where are the Curt Gowdys, Merlin Olsens, Howard Cosells, Charlie Jones, Dick Enberg, Don Criquis, John Maddens, etc. of days gone by? They were storytellers rather than monotone narrators.  

For me, the game itself is as good as ever, as long as the zebras haven't hijacked the action as they did this past Monday. The TV viewing is not as compelling. Is it because I'm older and don't get as amped up for things like watching a game? Maybe. But, I still think in spite of superior TV picture, angles, replays, the TV experience doesn't seem as exciting as it used to be, largely because of the boring broadcast teams. 

 

This is a great point! Broadcasting in general is so bad in many of these games, and that makes an enormous difference. 

 

Many of us grew up in a golden era of announcers and now there's a void

[Shaw66]

54 minutes ago, Einstein's Dog said:

To me, the above reads of a person disappointed in actually realizing they fell for the BS that the FO was selling.  The diehard Bills fans who made themselves believe the "WR room quietly got better" or Beane is trailblazing into the "WRs are a dime a dozen".  BS...BS...BS....just PR from the FO, sorry for those of you that fell for it.

 

Lets not rain on the parade of those of us who are rejoicing in having what we considered the largest problem addressed.  

 

For me, this restores a lot of faith back in Beane.  Smart guy who is working hard to address the Bills needs.  I was worried after the 3-0 start and people were crowing on about how this new look was so dominant - that Beane/McD might be thinking that.  This move is more like the move off of Tyrod even though they made the playoffs- don't rest at 4-2, you can make the playoffs but you are not a contender.  Today, the Bills are a contender!   Let those of us that thought this was the missing piece celebrate!!!

You misunderstood my point. I was only using the Bills as an example of how teams aren't really put together until October. Up until then, everyone is still assembling their teams. As a result, these early season games feel like preseason games.  That's all. 

 

I think Beane is great. He says all the time that he is prepared to do anything and everything at any time to make the team better. I think the Cooper move is excellent. Right kind of player to add to the team, both on and off the field. He'll know his role and fit in. He'll be a senior voice on the offense who will back up Allen. support him. Great move to get him without any significant cap hit. Excellent management of draft choices - the second he got for Diggs covers the third he gave up for Cooper. The whole thing strikes me as a solid move by Beane. He's doing his job. 

 

The amount of impact Cooper will have is yet to be determined. It's the kind of move Beane should be making, even though not every move works out. 

 

If we're talking Beane, I'll admit to being a little concerned that Bishop hasn't flashed much yet. It's early, I know, but not that early. I'll be happy if I see him starting to get more snaps.  

[MikePJ76]

1 minute ago, SoMAn said:

I think the comments regarding broadcasts are hitting the target. The production has gotten better in some ways, but maybe a bit over the top with some of the graphics and animation. May be too much sparkle for football. Also, the commentating crews are weak compared to the broadcasters of yesteryear, many of whom were groomed on radio and had the kind of commanding voices that could make mundane trivia interesting to the listener. Where are the Curt Gowdys, Merlin Olsens, Howard Cosells, Charlie Jones, Dick Enberg, Don Criquis, John Maddens, etc. of days gone by? They were storytellers rather than monotone narrators.  

For me, the game itself is as good as ever, as long as the zebras haven't hijacked the action as they did this past Monday. The TV viewing is not as compelling. Is it because I'm older and don't get as amped up for things like watching a game? Maybe. But, I still think in spite of superior TV picture, angles, replays, the TV experience doesn't seem as exciting as it used to be, largely because of the boring broadcast teams. 

I think a little of that is also the amount of domes in the league and how they all kind of look the same.  When you tune into a Dallas game it looks basically like a vikings/rams/chargers/raiders game.

 

I miss the old boring stadiums named after world war II related events/people.  Playing games outside on real grass always is better imo and looks awesome on TV.  I loathe domes in the NFL and I dislike them even more in MLB.  

 

there was something appealing about watching a skins-cowboys game at RFK with madden and summerall.

 

thankfully Buffalo, Chicago, Cleveland Green Bay and new england haven't built domed stadiums.

[lookylookyherecomescookie]

   Try muting the sound while watching. For me, improves the viewing experience greatly. Most of the talk during a game is just to fill the space between plays. It is 98% boring, repetitive, blather.  The muting experience may take you a game or two to get used to and appreciate, but it's worth a try.    

[Ned Flanders]

I get your points, but the TV numbers don't say the NFL is declining, in fact it's more popular than it's ever been.  

 

I'm in my late 60s and I pine for the "good old days" but the information that's available in real time blows away what was available to us just 20 years ago.  40 years ago, I would have learned on the local nightly news that the Bills had traded for Amari Cooper...today, I'm flooded with information seconds after it happened.  And good luck getting highlights when you want them...I remember watching Howard Cosell's MNF halftime highlights in vain, waiting for a Bills sighting, only to have to wait until "This Week in Pro Football" on Saturday to see any Bills highlights...or in most cases, "lowlights."

 

I get the oversaturation, I miss Charlie Jones, Curt Gowdy, and Al DeRogatis, and loath the often times endless commercials, but the product on the field and the television production has never been better.

 

Now get off my lawn!

[MikePJ76]

1 minute ago, Ned Flanders said:

I get your points, but the TV numbers don't say the NFL is declining, in fact it's more popular than it's ever been.  

 

I'm in my late 60s and I pine for the "good old days" but the information that's available in real time blows away what was available to us just 20 years ago.  40 years ago, I would have learned on the local nightly news that the Bills had traded for Amari Cooper...today, I'm flooded with information seconds after it happened.  And good luck getting highlights when you want them...I remember watching Howard Cosell's MNF halftime highlights in vain, waiting for a Bills sighting, only to have to wait until "This Week in Pro Football" on Saturday to see any Bills highlights...or in most cases, "lowlights."

 

I get the oversaturation, I miss Charlie Jones, Curt Gowdy, and Al DeRogatis, and loath the often times endless commercials, but the product on the field and the television production has never been better.

 

Now get off my lawn!

I remember trying to fall asleep at the end of a sunday night after the games were done and watching the highlights on George Michaels sports machine...even though I had already watched NFL Primetime on ESPN!

[T master]

2 hours ago, Warcodered said:

maybe it's saturation? They've flooded the market so much that people just want a break from stuff that doesn't really apply to the team they care about.

 

That is exactly where i'm at ! I still love the Bills and watching them play every chance i get but I CAN'T STAND watching a KC game because Taylor Swifts reaction to the game is more important to their ratings than the game & it makes me want to puke every time they show her !! 

 

Then all of this international game thing another thing i will not watch even i the Bills are playing i would rather have those games in our home stadiums for our fans & have those from other countries come here & pump that cash into our local economy instead of the NFL like every other company out sourcing the product .

 

Every game that goes to a different country takes cash out of those that work at Highmark & all the other stadiums here so i won't support that . 

 

Then all the really great announcers are leaving or taking other gigs . Like Micheals going to prime, Herby is a college guy don't really care for that match up i don't mind Buck & Troy, Nance will be leaving more than likely sooner than later but i do like him & Romo, Boomer will be gone too & his partner Tom is already gone .

 

The entirety of the game as we knew it is or has changed and will continue to do so and IMHO also will it's ratings due to over saturation as you have said .

 

But i will always be a die hard Bills fan no matter what !! GO BILLS !!! 

[Mr. WEO]

1 hour ago, MikePJ76 said:

My point was about the playoffs being carried on a cable channel that needs to be subscribed to through a cable subscription. Even Espn put the Orioles-Royals series on ESPN 2 which can not be subscribed to as a stand alone, so if you pay for espn or Espn+ as a standalone you still couldn't have watched the games without an actual Cable Subscription as part of the package.  This is my issue, its a post season issue.

 

Yes, I watch the Yankees on YES and also Prime and Apple TV.  That is the regular season though.  Personally, I use the MLB App and login to yes for pre and post game stuff with my parents account in NY.  The Yankees sell a stand alone YES app subscription for 125 a year but I don't think its available in all markets, for instance I live 15 minutes from the Texas Rangers Globe Life Field and am pretty sure I can not sign up for YES.

 

Cutting the cord is not subscribing to a cable subscription in the traditional sense, the delivery is not what I am talking about.  Not sure why you are bringing that up, I mean yea you can subscribe to direct tv, spectrum, fubo, hulutv or sling etc. and just use an app.  Not sure why that is relevant.  In order to have the channels you need a subscription.

 

As far as MLB never having a black audience I just don't buy that.  The history of the game and cooperstown are filled with amazing black players and everyone wanted to watch them.  Young black athletes grew up playing baseball and wanting to play in MLB because they watched/listened to their games and wanted to be like them.  The game had players who looked like them they admired and looked up to.

 

19.1 % of the US is Hispanic/Latino, 60% of that is Mexican.  

30% of MLB is Latino, 1.6% of that group is Mexican.

 

So it's not the same thing.  Kids growing up around this country until the last 20 years or so could turn on an MLB game and see black superstars who came from their neighborhoods and went to their schools and would want to watch and would want to be the next Willie Mays, Reggie Jackson, Rickey Henderson, Ken Griffey, Tony Gwynn etc.  They just do not exist in todays game.  A 2nd/3rd/4th generation mexican american family is not going to tune into an MLB game because a guy from the dominican is leading the Twins in RBI's.  Its just a different thing.  

 

 

 

 

yep.

 

I can't remember exactly but I think there is a play in the first quarter of the Giants-Niners 1990 NFC Championship that benefitted the Giants and they kicked a field goal out of it.  I have game on DVD somewhere on a shelf from my years of downloading everygame I could get my hands on via ten yard torrents.   I think those 3 points were big late in that game.

 

Would have been nice to beat the hell out of Steve Young who was primed to make a mistake constantly at that point of this career in tampa instead of Bill Bellichick and Bill Parcells defense!

 

I didn't say they "never had a black audience"--so you aren't disagreeing with me there, nor did I suggest that the HOF and the game itself didn't/doesn't have great black players.  That strawman argument aside,  black viewership has always been a small fraction of viewers---and it is even smaller now as the rosters and therefore viewers have seen great strides in Hispanic participation.  This is undeniable.

 

Also, as I said above, it has been far longer than 20 years since that kids could watch their local team the whole season on network TV. 

 

As for your Mexicans vs other Latinos, it's not a point worth making.  Many MLB fans decades ago considered some of the best players of color as "black", when they were from Cuba and the DR--this is still true today.  But the facts remain that Hispanic viewers are the growing demographic for watchers of MLB games, regardless of where the players come from. 

 

If you are now making the argument that most kids (or other potential viewers) only tune into the MLB for the playoffs, I'm with you there--and it it makes my point about MLB's irrelevance compared to the NFL.  MLB shoots itself in the foot by putting these playoff games on weekday afternoons, when most people can't watch TV at work.   That might help their anemic numbers. 

[machine gun kelly]

Shaw, I just watch when I want as if a game is not interesting to me like last night, I don’t watch it.  To have two games on MNF if the second is at 8:30 is a pain.  They are not on the Sunday ticket, as regular tv, you can’t watch split screen.  If they made them at 7 and 10 , and the 10 is a west coast game, i truly understand as not everyone gets up at 5am like me on a weekday.  West coast people probably love it as they get their 49 ears, Seattle, LA games at 7.  Anyway, there’s no point in complaining about it, as it’s not changing.

[JakeFrommStateFarm]

For some reason I just couldn't bring myself to watch the Broncos Saints game last night.

 

I just couldn't go through the torture

[HomeskillitMoorman]

3 hours ago, Augie said:

They lost me to some degree by adding all the streaming services. If you want to make it harder to watch, I just might skip it. That is the calculated decision they made to make more money. Also, being the “home team” in London against the Jags who arrived a week earlier and have been cultivating a fan base there for more than a decade doesn’t pass the smell test. 

 

I’ll always be a Bills fan, but my interest in the rest of the NFL is waning. 

This is my big problem. The hardest part is helping my step-father, who is pretty old and lives in a different state and loves football but just has a hard time keeping up with how to get onto all these streaming services. 
 

The Sunday Ticket package, which I get for him every year, should absolutely have all these games on it. It is so incredibly ridiculous that on top of this package, people need to also have the apps for and get subscriptions to all of this other garbage. 
 

They do their own fanbase so dirty, but they know we’ll keep coming back. It’s infuriating. 

[iccrewman112]

3 hours ago, Warcodered said:

maybe it's saturation? They've flooded the market so much that people just want a break from stuff that doesn't really apply to the team they care about.

everything sports now is sooooo centered around gambling. Any sports radio show, sports center, pregame, postgame, in game odds and payouts, record against the spread,  the main segments and graphics are paid for by Fan Duel, BetMGM, Bet ESPN, etc.

 

its a turnoff for me as I’m not into gambling and ignore most of it but I’m also concerned at how many 8-16 years with a smartphone can get easily get an account active with any of the gambling sites.  

[Augie]

2 minutes ago, HomeskillitMoorman said:

This is my big problem. The hardest part is helping my step-father, who is pretty old and lives in a different state and loves football but just has a hard time keeping up with how to get onto all these streaming services. 
 

The Sunday Ticket package, which I get for him every year, should absolutely have all these games on it. It is so incredibly ridiculous that on top of this package, people need to also have the apps for and get subscriptions to all of this other garbage. 
 

They do their own fanbase so dirty, but they know we’ll keep coming back. It’s infuriating. 

 

I’m not sure how many services I have, but I watched the Chiefs/Dolphins playoff game in a bar on some guys phone. A PLAYOFF GAME, and the only way to see it at this resort is on a stranger’s phone. He’s there with his family, and we’re all watching on his tiny phone!  I just found something that said they got 2.8 million new subscribers with that ploy. That pisses me off. 

 

BTW - the guy I watched with turns out to be a former Patriot who played a bunch of games at the Ralph and had funny stories. He happens to be from my wife’s home town and he knows all her cousins. He got millions in the CTE suit. When we left he said “if I see you tomorrow and don’t recognize you, don’t be offended. I’m not drunk, but I just can’t remember $%#t any more.”  

[Virgil]

I think it's two things:

 

1 - There are some really terrible teams playing on prime time.  It's hard to watch football at times

 

2 - I think people are over the dynasty in the AFC.  For 20 years, it was always Brady.  Now, it feels like it's the Mahomes show.  It just gets old.

 

For me, with how the Bills have been, the regular season almost feels like the preseason and somewhat pointless.  No matter how good the Bills, Bengals, Texans, or Ravens get, they get bounced in the playoffs by the Chiefs.  It's just boring.

 

[The Frankish Reich]

The NFL is still wildly popular, more than ever before.

So is college football.

But they both run the risk of oversaturation. More games means each individual game is less important. More parity means the likelihood of two utterly mediocre teams meeting is higher. More bye weeks means weekends like this one where almost no game turns out to be worth watching. Thursday got assigned games we knew would be crap even months ahead of time.

[Big Blitz]

If anyone feels this way my opinion is it’s bc of the Sunday Ticket - we were all haggling Direct TV for discounts and got them.   
 

I truly don’t know how many can justify paying what freaking YouTube charges.

 

Amazon’s in game production sucks.  
 

Monday Night Football’s isn’t good either - Buck and Aikman belong on Sunday.  
 

Brady has done what, almost all the Cowboy games so far?  He is just not good.  And how have we not got a Nantz game yet??

 

 

Also we might be transitioning out of a QB golden era.  Not in terms of the player but the numbers they could put up.  
 

Defeneses have caught up.