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NFL viewership off 11% YOY (3 Viewers)

renesauz said:
This (bolded) argument is ludicrous. There are more upsets in the NFL now than ever before. There is (arguably) more parity now than ever before. Do you really think even half of the games 20 or 30 years ago were competitive? If so, you're deluding yourself.

A huge topic on this very board a few years ago was about whether or not parity was good for the NFL. Some folks actually preferred having 2 or 3 teams dominating the landscape and crushing all opponents.
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I don't know if that's the case or if it's a case that they want an "event" team that can draw crowds and ratings regardless of who they are playing.  

 
renesauz said:
This (bolded) argument is ludicrous. There are more upsets in the NFL now than ever before. There is (arguably) more parity now than ever before. Do you really think even half of the games 20 or 30 years ago were competitive? If so, you're deluding yourself.

A huge topic on this very board a few years ago was about whether or not parity was good for the NFL. Some folks actually preferred having 2 or 3 teams dominating the landscape and crushing all opponents.
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Do you have a link/source/study on some game data regarding parity in the NFL over the years vs other sports?

Maybe it's something else then. I don't know. I'm just less entertained this year than in previous years. 

 
It would be interesting to see demographics. Younger kids are used to watching very short clips, lots of highlights, and everything on demand. The NFL makes all of this extremely difficult. They micromanage all their media to the point of losing a lot of viewers. They don't understand that by limiting free exposure, they limit the number of new fans and lose old ones. 

 
If it weren't for Redzone and DFS, I might stop watching.

Because of those I'm into it more than any time in my life.

 
Andy Dufresne said:
For me it's

A) Too many commercials. The flow is always disrupted. It's like if I'm getting into a movie but I have to push pause every two minutes because someone in my family starts screaming something inane at me. "DID YOU WIND UP THE GARDEN HOSE!?"

B) The self importance of the players, and to a larger extent the league itself. It started for me when AP likened his working conditions to modern day slavery. How about a little self-awareness?

C) The on-field product. These guys are unbelievably exceptional athletes but almost equally poor football players. Missed tackles (going for highlight hits instead), dropped passes, inability to block, QBs that simply cannot throw...It's awful to watch. They come into the league not knowing how to play and now they practice LESS than before. It's no wonder old school coaches like Zimmer and Arians are effectively benching first rounders for their entire first year.
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A) Redzone has no commercials

B) If you only watch Redzone you won't see much or any of that

C) Redzone mostly shows just the scores, so everybody looks great

 
renesauz said:
This (bolded) argument is ludicrous. There are more upsets in the NFL now than ever before. There is (arguably) more parity now than ever before. Do you really think even half of the games 20 or 30 years ago were competitive? If so, you're deluding yourself.

A huge topic on this very board a few years ago was about whether or not parity was good for the NFL. Some folks actually preferred having 2 or 3 teams dominating the landscape and crushing all opponents.
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For people who really like the game, parity is good.  However, most of the people in this country really don't give one crap about the difference between a 4-3 and 3-4 defense and just want to know when they sit down to watch football for three hours that 'their' team is going to win. 

 
cstu said:
they sit down to watch football for three hours that 'their' team is going to win. 
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Actually, when you're a Charger fan, you sit down to watch football for three hours to see how your team is going to lose. You know how it ends, its really all about the journey. You can't get that just watching the redone channel. It's a dramatic, slow build.

 
The Redzone thing is weird for me. I watched it once for about 15 minutes several years ago and have never gone back. The only reason for Redzone type coverage of NFL as far as I can tell is fantasy football and gamblers that don't have time or patience to watch an actual football game being played between two teams.  I watch every Packer game, delayed, skipping though all the down time (commercials, time-outs, reviews, most special teams). I use the 10 second skip function to move things along in between plays. Its the only way for me anymore. 

 
If I didn't live 10 minutes from the stadium, I doubt I'd go to any games.  When I'm home, I have 2 TVs set up....one on RZ, the other on the game I want to watch (likely will flip around though)

 
CletiusMaximus said:
The Redzone thing is weird for me. I watched it once for about 15 minutes several years ago and have never gone back. The only reason for Redzone type coverage of NFL as far as I can tell is fantasy football and gamblers that don't have time or patience to watch an actual football game being played between two teams.  I watch every Packer game, delayed, skipping though all the down time (commercials, time-outs, reviews, most special teams). I use the 10 second skip function to move things along in between plays. Its the only way for me anymore. 
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How do you watch Chelsea games?

 
Noted idiot Jason Whitlock thinks that another factor could be the increasing influence of liberal social media and its hyper critical observations of football institutions. He is of the opinion that this barrage of criticism (from people who clearly hate football) discourages football's fan base which is culturally conservative and religious.

Now he's obviously full of it if he thinks critical sites like Deadspin and Vice Sports and a host of current writers "hate football" but there might be something there along the lines of some people not being able to deal with learning how the sausage is made, as one of my friends puts it.

 
I think the number of good teams with star players playing each other is in decline. Part of it is because there are so many good-not-great quarterbacks and because star running backs are more scarce.  I love watching Brady and Rodgers.  Newton does nothing for me.  Same with Wilson and Luck.  Rivers, Ben, and Eli are capable but hardly a draw. Peterson is hurt so the best running back draws are Gurley, Elliot, and bell and lacy...?   I have been an oilers and titans fan for my entire life but have struggled to watch them for years since McNair left.  Vince was a blip. Chris Johnson was unlikeable.  Same with Pacman and a slew of other "name" players.  Fantasy football also impacts viewership. If I don't have a guy playing i look for a game where I do.  If there isn't one (like tonight) then i find something else to do. 

 
GroveDiesel said:
It would be interesting to see demographics. Younger kids are used to watching very short clips, lots of highlights, and everything on demand. The NFL makes all of this extremely difficult. They micromanage all their media to the point of losing a lot of viewers. They don't understand that by limiting free exposure, they limit the number of new fans and lose old ones. 
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I do kinda wonder if this is a long-term trend.  Younger people access media entirely differently., and the NFL doesn't really seem to be adapting too much.  It's really kinda a ####ty product.  So many commercials, so many mediocre-to-bad teams.  I don't even really blame Goodell or players kneeling or concussions or whatever, it's just not compelling to watch.  I have no desire to watch two crap teams play (unless one of those crap teams is the Bills), and I have no desire to sit down for a full 3 hours and watch two teams I don't care about unless it's the playoffs.  I can think of 3 non-Bills games of which I've had the majority of the game on TV - 2 were background filler while I was doing home repairs, and the other was background filler while I had some beers and caught up with a friend I hadn't seen in about a year.  Is this what the NFL is reduced to for me....background noise?

 
Starting to believe the theory that less quality qbs are in the league now than at any other time in history. 

 
Gr00vus said:
Actually, when you're a Charger fan, you sit down to watch football for three hours to see how your team is going to lose. You know how it ends, its really all about the journey. You can't get that just watching the redone channel. It's a dramatic, slow build.
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:lmao:

 
Slapdash said:
Like @shader said earlier: it is just a boring product to watch a full game.  Tons of commercials and listening to people like Gruden or Sims blabber on for hours is just not entertaining

I still like Fantasy Football and RedZone
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I think 3 night games a week also kills my desire.  No chance am I going to devote 9 hours of my life every week in the evenings to football.

Now if it was one day a week...with great matchups and elite announcers...Id probably watch weekly.

 
It's hard to believe with the concussion problems that the NFL doesn't have the most severe PED penalties of all sports.

Penalties should be first offense you gone for 16 games.  Second offense you are done.

I'd also put a weight limit on the offensive and defensive lines.  Try to mimic the sizes of the 80's.  You can have one big dude.  Weight classes work in many other sports I don't see why it would be a problem.  Lineman would probably prefer not to have to balloon up.

Overall it would be less injuries to players and open up the run game.

 
pollardsvision said:
MLB, on the other hand, had about 9 straight hours of awesomeness going on yesterday.
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MLB should have games on all day during the season.  You sacrifice ratings and attendance for 1-2 games but you get coverage the whole day.  People are on the internet all day checking sports websites.  A live afternoon even drives eyes to night games.

 
My viewing is down at least 50% over the past three years because the games have sucked and I refuse to watch commercials.  I'll watch maybe one full game a week.  Much rather watch college football.

 
The Z Machine said:
CletiusMaximus said:
The Redzone thing is weird for me. I watched it once for about 15 minutes several years ago and have never gone back. The only reason for Redzone type coverage of NFL as far as I can tell is fantasy football and gamblers that don't have time or patience to watch an actual football game being played between two teams.  I watch every Packer game, delayed, skipping though all the down time (commercials, time-outs, reviews, most special teams). I use the 10 second skip function to move things along in between plays. Its the only way for me anymore. 
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How do you watch Chelsea games?
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Maybe his DVR has a 90 minute skip function for those ;)  

 
The bigger point here is that sports needs you to have a vested interest.

That usually comes in 3 forms:

1. You have a favorite team and are a massive fan

2.  You need to have money invested

3. You need to be competitively invested (such as a fantasy league with close friends where winning, not money is the motivator)

Without one of those things, it's unlikely that most people will watch a lot of random games, they'll just check out the important ones.

 
I remember when MNF was an EVENT- must see TV-  Howard Cosel, Dandy Don, etc..  that theme song used to give me chills..

now, and last night was a great example, it is a big dud..   

that said, I still watch redzone and good matchups, but it is more background watching than 'glued to my chair' watching

 
I watch the steelers when on in my market, when I dont have other obligations. If it is a playoff or big game, I will try to be proactive to make time. Otherwise, I really am not watching. Quit fantasy last year after 20 years of it too. 

 
Fans of most of the AFC teams (we know who we are) it's pretty depressing for many years now.

It's virtually always the same teams, with a few wannabees sprinkled in a year here or there.

NFC is a little bit better, so maybe those markets have been performing better.

But with so much available on TV via Netflix, Amazon, Streaming etc, why bother again with another bad football season.

For me, it all hinges on my fantasy season to keep me interested, and this year it's looking iffy so far...

 
Leroy Hoard said:
Best way to watch live is still redzone & best way to watch taped are the 12 minute highlight films NFL network puts on demand.
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It is a huge problem with your product when watching the highlights are better than the game.  I can't stand tge RZ channel- way too ADD for me.  

For me the problem has become the lack of flow and build up of tension.  The highlight shows point out the big problem- we are watching 3+ hours of a program to get about 25 minutes of action.  The rest is commercials, replays, time outs, and the boring commentators showing us the play that just happened 3x. 

I am sure a bit is that I have changed.  Used to watch all the games Sunday and Monday.  Now I can't make it through a non-Pats game without getting bored, and even a Pats game is pushing it.  I am usually reading or doing something else while the games are on. 

 
My points have already been said throughout this thread but I've been watching less and less of the three standalone prime time games.  On Sunday afternoon I watch RedZone but with all of the commercials, constant replays for challenges and scores and turnovers, plus the horrible matchups it's just really difficult to get through a single primetime game.  

I think the NFL really needs to figure out a better way to get advertising revenue than from commercials.  They should know that people don't watch commercials any more and they seem to want to triple the amount of them that are necessary.

 
Slapdash said:
Touchdown! - Mandatory Review - Extra Point - Commercial - Kickoff - Commercial - Next Drive




 
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- Fumble - review to see who recovered - commercial - verdict of review - commercial - next drive - INT - review of INT to see if it hit the ground - commercial - verdict on INT - accidentally start next drive before commercial - field goal - commercial - kickoff - commercial - next drive leads 3rd and 1 at the goal line - two-minute warning - commercial - running back fumbles at goal line - review of fumble - commercial - verdict of fumble - timeout - commercial - kicker getting ready for game-tying fieldgoal - timeout to ice kicker - commercial - another timeout to ice kicker - commercial - did kicker actually kick through uprights...review - commercial - verdict of review - going to OT - commercial.

:tfp:  

 
Brady Marino said:
- Fumble - review to see who recovered - commercial - verdict of review - commercial - next drive - INT - review of INT to see if it hit the ground - commercial - verdict on INT - accidentally start next drive before commercial - field goal - commercial - kickoff - commercial - next drive leads 3rd and 1 at the goal line - two-minute warning - commercial - running back fumbles at goal line - review of fumble - commercial - verdict of fumble - timeout - commercial - kicker getting ready for game-tying fieldgoal - timeout to ice kicker - commercial - another timeout to ice kicker - commercial - did kicker actually kick through uprights...review - commercial - verdict of review - going to OT - commercial.

:tfp:  
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This post makes me want to turn on Netflix

 
I'm curious to know what the viewer numbers look like for RedZone. Feel like that's how most people watch any more. You don't get commercials, easy to track your guys for fantasy, and it's basically all scoring plays.

I mainly just watch the Redskins games this season. I didn't watch any of the Thursday or Monday night games this week. With playoff baseball on, I'd much rather watch that than a meaningless Bucs/Panthers game or 49ers/Cardinals with the pitiful QB play.

As others have said, the Thursday Night games really hurt the product. The guys are so beat up going into that game, that it just isn't good football. And it does seem like the Thursday games are usually pretty crappy matchups. Is anyone excited to see San Diego/Denver this week? Even the MNF matchups aren't great. We get the Jets/Cardinals this week you guys!! Seems like outside of SNF, the other primetime games are pretty bad.

 
Hu-Tang Clan said:
In the LA game while they were away in commercial Gurley actually scored a TD.  So the NFL has to cram in so many commercials they actually miss their own scoring plays.
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Yeah I was watching that, pretty bad.  At one point, I think it was the Bills Justin Hunter TD (could be wrong), there was a touchdown, review --> went to commercial --> came back, TD stands, kick PAT --> another commercial.  Brutal.

 
Hu-Tang Clan said:
In the LA game while they were away in commercial Gurley actually scored a TD.  So the NFL has to cram in so many commercials they actually miss their own scoring plays.
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That is bad.  I get a kick out of the redzone channel when there is like 5-6 games on and they are all on commercial break at once.  Even the announcer guy is all annoyed and can't believe it.

 
Also, weren't reviews supposed to be 30 seconds under the hood and that's it?  Is that still a rule or is that just for coach challenges?

 
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