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OT: Is NFL viewership in a downward spiral?

GeorgeStreet

GeorgeStreet

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Jul 27, 2001
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Reports say fewer people are watching NFL football. I'm not in the least surprised.

I love the actual football. The best of the best players competing in a colorful, tactical, violent winner-take-all controlled war.

But this war has a zillion boring, repetitive commercial ads interrupting the action every three minutes on average.

European soccer has avoided this greed-induced suicide. Forty-five minute periods of soccer action uninterrupted by commercials is so much more enjoyable to watch.

I worry that college football will suffer the same fate as the NFL, loss of viewer interest, before long.
 
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We talked about this in a thread a week or two ago. I love football - love it - but if I'm not watching The Giants I couldn't care less about the NFL anymore. Too many TO's, too predictable, and too many prima dona assholes anymore. Kinda how I've felt about the NBA for a while now.
 
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Not sure whether it's temporary or a trend.....I don't mind the commercials as much....what I think hurts and erodes the play comes down to the greed of the owners with too low of a salary cap and a 53 man roster...if you have a couple of injuries, you wind up playing rookies or players that are not as good....There's no way an NBA role player or complimentary player like JR Smith or Jeremy Lin should be making 12-13M a year (Smith) or Lin should be at 8M, if compared to a top NFL player.

If the rosters were expanded (maybe to 60-62 players) and the cap was doubled, teams would be able to keep their core players, develop role players and pay them and keep the fans interested, where the bulk of the players can start and end their careers with one team. Right now, teams keep players based on cost first....younger is cheaper and not always better.
 
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I don't watch much TV at all. Some movies and sports. RUFB away games or occasional other CFB games are pretty much the only thing I ever watch that has commercials. And when commercials are on, I use my iPad and pay no attention.

I DVR other sports stuff and fast-forward through the commercials. Only watch movies on cable channels w/no commercials.

Hate commercials and refuse to watch them. Hate marketing mailing and toss them out without looking at them. Hate spam email, most of it is auto-deleted and what's left is manually deleted without viewing.

I use a combination of anti-ad-ware stuff to prevent seeing ads on websites. Some slip through the cracks, but not many.

I guess people watch/read/ingest all that marketing crap. But for the life of me, I don't understand why. But I guess people that watch those commercials is what makes sports entertainment largely free (instead of pay-for-view).

Edit: Uh... Not sure where that rant came from. I guess NFL games and the amount of commercial breaks is what got me going. [laughing]
 
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This election is taking a big bite out of football. The news channels are all up over 30% viewership.
However for me personally for the past 10 years or so the rule changes against defenses, the lack of using running backs...pass happy format has killed the pro game. And as much of you like Madden, real games shouldn't be played that way. Because in the end in both college and pros. More often than not it's the teams that run the ball and play great D win it all.
 
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mildone said:
I don't watch much TV at all. Some movies and sports. RUFB away games or occasional other CFB games are pretty much the only thing I ever watch that has commercials. And when commercials are on, I use my iPad and pay no attention.

I DVR other sports stuff and fast-forward through the commercials. Only watch movies on cable channels w/no commercials.

Hate commercials and refuse to watch them. Hate marketing mailing and toss them out without looking at them. Hate spam email, most of it is auto-deleted and what's left is manually deleted without viewing.

I use a combination of anti-ad-ware stuff to prevent seeing ads on websites. Some slip through the cracks, but not many.

I guess people watch/read/ingest all that marketing crap. But for the life of me, I don't understand why. But I guess people that watch those commercials is what makes sports entertainment largely free (instead of pay-for-view).

Edit: Uh... Not sure where that rant came from. I guess NFL games and the amount of commercial breaks is what got me going. [laughing]
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There is no more "free." Who isn't paying a cable company or a satellite company or an internet service provider?

What ekes me is that you pay for this TV service and STILL have to watch/listen to a zillion brain destroying commercial ads. Someone is going to figure out how to sort this out and make a fortune. Hey, the English Premier League figured it out.
 
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I pay enough attention to the NFL to fill out my fantasy roster every week, also will pay attention and watch the Giants and Jets. Come December when the regular College season ends, I pay even more attention. NFL playoffs are great, IMO, wish College had an expanded playoffs too, say 8-12 teams. They are missing out on a lot of revenue.
 
Southern Gentleman said:
I gave up on the NFL years ago. Too many primadonna's who are overpaid and under produce. I watch college football from kickoff at 11:00 am Central time on Saturday's until I can no longer keep my eyes open on Saturday night.

I don't even turn on the TV on Sundays. The NFL lost me a long time ago.
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You must be my virtual brother.
 
AreYouNUTS said:
We talked about this in a thread a week or two ago. I love football - love it - but if I'm not watching The Giants I couldn't care less about the NFL anymore. Too many TO's, too predictable, and too many prima dona assholes anymore. Kinda how I've felt about the NBA for a while now.
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I agree but IMO the NBA has come around. I was very down on it from 2005 ish til maybe two years ago. All this stuff is cyclical.
 
I am 39yrs old

I grew up in the 80s. who's father didn't live for Sundays? 1pm game. 4pm game. 7pm = done

Those men live and died for Sunday

Us? Sunday , Monday Thuraday, 24-7 talk radio, streaming highlights ? why waste an entire 4hr block Mon, Thur, Sun? do your thing and DVR it...

Suckers (NFL, TV advertisers )
 
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If you have the Sunday ticket you can change the channel when a commercial comes on and watch another game.
 
RUsojo said:
I agree but IMO the NBA has come around. I was very down on it from 2005 ish til maybe two years ago. All this stuff is cyclical.
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Come around to what? NBA viewership is still down from the 1982-98 period.
326436d1bbd743776dbe1097db8bb526.png
 
RU205 said:
If you have the Sunday ticket you can change the channel when a commercial comes on and watch another game.
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You haven't noticed that NFL games are on a strict commercial break timer? If you switch from one game to another because you are tired of watching the same five minute series of ads for the umpteenth time, you will just discover another five minute series of ads. Enough to make sober people nauseous.
 
GeorgeStreet said:
There is no more "free." Who isn't paying a cable company or a satellite company or an internet service provider?

What ekes me is that you pay for this TV service and STILL have to watch/listen to a zillion brain destroying commercial ads. Someone is going to figure out how to sort this out and make a fortune. Hey, the English Premier League figured it out.
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You really want sponsorship logos on the uniforms? That's how they figured it out. Although I would love to see the Preparation H Dallas Cowboy Hemorroid's. Hey you might be onto something.
 
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I love taping NFL games and watching it later. Can watch a whole game in 1 hour. Fast forward even between plays. I just have better things to do with my time than watch football on TV.
 
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It definitely is. Part of it is the silly protests these oppressed millionaires are kneeling for, but a bigger part is fewer and fewer people are watching games on tv and are using their devices. The monetization of ad dollars on network television are much different then streaming. Dollars to cents. It's a huge concern for the NFL.

Personally speaking outside of inappropriate protests, the product is watered down. Barely been watching any NFL and don't miss it at all.
 
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I watch more football on demand this year. The WatchESPN app on Roku is great for it - lot of the games I miss saturday, I watch the rest of the week. B1G app is good, too, but only for conference teams, obviously. Fox app is garbage with no on-demand feature. Haven't really figured CBS app out yet, don't care about the SEC anyway.

Editing seems to vary by game on ESPN, but commercials are cut way down, halftime usually cut out, etc. Some games are only 2 hours. Plus you can fast forward through whatever you don't want to watch, jump to the end if you don't have time, whatever. Still like live games, but on-demand is a great way to watch on my own schedule.

NFL doesn't offer on-demand games, far as I can tell, probably because it's a greedy b#tch.
 
Leonard23 said:
Come around to what? NBA viewership is still down from the 1982-98 period.
326436d1bbd743776dbe1097db8bb526.png
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I believe nuts was referring to the way the game was played and the product on the court. Not the ratings. It actually looks like ratings have been trending up since 2005 in general which by happenstance the last two years have been highest since - exactly when I said I started watching again.

Again, I'm saying the product on the court has come around and it looks like people are coming back now -that 7-10 downturn in the mid 2000s turned people off because the game was bad but like I said it's getting better.
 
Roger Goodell has been getting vociferously booed at the draft for years now. People really despise him and his NFL.

A few years ago I realized the contempt NFL had for fans by leaving a "Mute" button off ads. Now if you go to a highlight they make you watch TWO commercials first. They feel like they have fans by the nads and can just squeeze as hard as they like.

I didn't mind the actions to curtail violence (players were getting dirty) but they should focus on league issued penalties and not making refs penalty queens during games.

Everyone used to say how NFL games were an "event" - unlike to too numerous NBA, NHL games. So of course the zombies at NFL now have to waterboard you with games and fantasy football racket.

Before Goodell rejected police support from Dallas and sided with the insurgency he also rejected border patrol print ads in Superbowl program years ago. I saw what kind of person he was then. Twisting arms to get Sam drafted didn't help. He's just another dark prince casting spells and avoiding mirrors.

NFL Refuses to Run Ad to Recruit Border Agents
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2007/02/nfl_refuses_to_.html
 
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GeorgeStreet said:
There is no more "free." Who isn't paying a cable company or a satellite company or an internet service provider?

What ekes me is that you pay for this TV service and STILL have to watch/listen to a zillion brain destroying commercial ads. Someone is going to figure out how to sort this out and make a fortune. Hey, the English Premier League figured it out.
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I used to watch a lot of soccer, and yeah, no commercials makes it great. Would still watch soccer if I had more free time.
 
RUsojo said:
I agree but IMO the NBA has come around. I was very down on it from 2005 ish til maybe two years ago. All this stuff is cyclical.
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Gotta admit 2 things:

- I loved The Knicks/Pistons/Bulls/Pacers/Heat wars from '88 to 2001 and enjoyed those west division series for a few years, afterwards, between Sacramento and Dallas and San Antonio.
- it was maybe from around 2007'ish on that I lost interest and a lot of it, at least for me, was the non-stop forcing of Kobe and LeBron down our throats by ESPN. Also hated that the D we saw, in the late 80's and 90's, disappeared. Call it the "Jordan Rules" effect, with every prima dona getting every ticky-tack touch foul 30-feet from the basket, and D's no longer being able to rough it up in the lane, I just lost my love for the game at this level. That being said I HAVE enjoyed watching the playoffs again the last couple of years.

Football...the officiating is really killing me. Throwing a flag when a DB touches a WR's arm, 10-yards and 2-3 steps prior to that arm moving for a catch and having NO impact on the play, I just can't deal with anymore. Protect the QB, yes, but enough with the nonsense. Also the TO's both prior to a kickoff and following the return drives me f*cking nuts.

The NFL requires - REQUIRES - 20 commercial breaks per game. 10 per half. College games run long, no question, but this kills me. I don't need to do THAT many shots. [cheers]
 
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ashokan said:
I just read best article I've seen on NFL problems..

Arrogance, Deceit, Oversaturation At Root Of NFL’s Ratings Decline
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/10/...ersaturation-at-root-of-nfls-ratings-decline/
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Nails it. 100% spot-on and, well, what I was just talking about:

"Officials Dictate Too Much
In the very first game of the NFL season, the Carolina Panthers trailed the Denver Broncos by one point in the final minutes. Carolina faced a fourth-and-21. The odds were long, and when Cam Newton threw incomplete, the game was lost. But wait! A flag. A penalty on Chris Harris for giving a shove to a wide receiver resulted in a five-yard penalty and, more importantly, an automatic first down. That is preposterous and it goes against the entire premise of what football is all about. There’s a reason that many sports fans have lost respect and appreciation of the NBA, and it has a lot to do with touch fouls. The NFL at times treats such fouls even softer than the NBA, which should never be the case."
 
What killed the NBA for me was two things: 1) ineptitude of the post 1999 Knicks and 2) Iso-Joe -put 4 guys on one side and let them stand there while 1 guy took on the other team. Named after Joe Johnson. The NFL has gotten oversaturated and the product has suffered for the same reasons as many of you have mentioned. This week alone, you have Thursday night, 4 windows on Sunday (with the London game) and then Monday night. People can just look up their fantasy stats online now and don't have as much need to be glued to the TV. Plus Red Zone.
 
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rutger80 said:
What killed the NBA for me was two things: 1) ineptitude of the post 1999 Knicks and 2) Iso-Joe -put 4 guys on one side and let them stand there while 1 guy took on the other team. Named after Joe Johnson. The NFL has gotten oversaturated and the product has suffered for the same reasons as many of you have mentioned. This week alone, you have Thursday night, 4 windows on Sunday (with the London game) and then Monday night. People can just look up their fantasy stats online now and don't have as much need to be glued to the TV. Plus Red Zone.
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The fact that, through 7 games, the Bears have played 3 prime-time games, is all you need to know about how awful these Thursday night games and NFL scheduling is right now. 14.5 PPG win spreads thus far this year on Thursday night!
 
I haven't watched an NFL game in several years. Part of it was because I cut the cord on cable a few years ago. The other reason was that I got tired of the BS the NFL front office was shoveling. For instance, at the time the concussion issue was raising its head and the league said that it was concerned about player safety. But then at the same time there were discussions going on about going to an eighteen game schedule. Seriously? How dumb do they think people are? The NFL is just full of it, and subsequent issues from the past few years have just borne that out.
 
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GeorgeStreet said:
Reports say fewer people are watching NFL football. I'm not in the least surprised.

I love the actual football. The best of the best players competing in a colorful, tactical, violent winner-take-all controlled war.

But this war has a zillion boring, repetitive commercial ads interrupting the action every three minutes on average.

European soccer has avoided this greed-induced suicide. Forty-five minute periods of soccer action uninterrupted by commercials is so much more enjoyable to watch.

I worry that college football will suffer the same fate as the NFL, loss of viewer interest, before long.
Click to expand...
yes, for many reasons, college ball could face the same dillema if it keeps following in big brothers footsteps
 
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JQRU91 said:
I haven't watched an NFL game in several years. Part of it was because I cut the cord on cable a few years ago. The other reason was that I got tired of the BS the NFL front office was shoveling. For instance, at the time the concussion issue was raising its head and the league said that it was concerned about player safety. But then at the same time there were discussions going on about going to an eighteen game schedule. Seriously? How dumb do they think people are? The NFL is just full of it, and subsequent issues from the past few years have just borne that out.
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4 pre-season = 25%
MLB 33 pre-season = 20%
NBA 6 pre-season = 7.3%
NHL 6 pre-season - 7.3%

...suffice to say, with all the potential injuries involved in football, it's f*cking insane to have 4 (and for 2 teams, yearly, 5...) pre-season games. WOW!
 
The quality of play in the NFL is way down. Like Hawk said, when you have tight caps and 53-man rosters, if you have a few injuries you're watching taxi squad level players play. I've been down on the NFL the past 6 years or so and I lose more interest each passing year. The only redeeming quality to the NFL is getting to watch the upper echelon QBs play the position at the highest level. That's the one thing we don't see in the college game except the years where we are treated to a Luck or Jamies Winston. Even still, there's only a handful of those QBs. Rodgers, Brady, Brees, Roethlesberger, Eli, Rivers, Flacco, Luck and now MAYBE Carr and Winston. Guys like Matt Ryan, Andy Dalton and Stafford do nothing for me despite what their fantasy numbers may suggest. That's the other thing...fantasy football has hurt the NFL game in my opinion. People care more about that than the quality of the product. Also, the storylines off the field have turned the NFL into the WWE. Last but not least, the movie Concussion changed my view of the league for good. They are scumbags in the NFL office.
 
They've oversatured it like Mark Cuban predicted.

There's too many bad games on that garner no interest.

Thursday night crappy game
Monday night crappy game
Sunday 1 and 4 fine
Sunday night I'll leave it on because there isn't much else at 8pm

I care less and less about the NFL each year. Back when I was a kid it was all I watched, didn't watch any college sports. Something changed, whether it was my idols leaving the sport, the over commercialization (which I despise), or flooding the market with a product that becomes diluted.
 
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player "protests" is what did me in... don't give a shit now.. i got better things i can do on a Sunday... like go golfing or do a Trek-a-Thon... or a STAR WARS-A-THON .. or a M*A*S*H-a-Thon
 
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