The NFL is a going downhill pretty quickly. So many thing have contributed. The first was free agency and players switching teams. Then skyrocketing salaries that made it too expensive for regular folks to attend games. Then the medical issues. Now the player protests and the fact that alot of the games just arent entertaining. Most people cant relate to the players and dont find them likeable. Honestly, fantasy football is the only positive thing they have trending. It will be long and slow, but the NFL is losing it.

Actually, I dont do fantasy football. Just observing that it is one of the few factors that might increase viewership. And Im not lobbying for the league's demise, just making an observation. When TV ratings and attendance are down for consecutive seasons, its hard to argue that something isn't happening. But I do appreciate PatAg taking time to add to the discussion with personal insults.

Pigeon88 said:

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Actually, I dont do fantasy football. Just observing that it is one of the few factors that might increase viewership. And Im not lobbying for the league's demise, just making an observation. When TV ratings and attendance are down for consecutive seasons, its hard to argue that something isn't happening. But I do appreciate PatAg taking time to add to the discussion with personal insults.

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live streaming anywhere has been a major driver of all TV ratings dropping across the board. Lot of people think attendance has been dropping due to quality of picture and interactiveness at home is more important to millennials than the actual game experience.

All that is to say that... TV ratings are rly an outdated metric to the leagues demise. The internet is making the product the major sports leagues offer very very different and if anything has opened up and grown the NFL even faster globally.

Going to be a weak super bowl.

My guess is that OP's team had a bad year.

JW said:

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Going to be a weak super bowl.

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Patriots vs. Vikings would be weak?

Did you watch any of the games this weekend?

I will say...if somehow the Patriots lose next week...

we will see a true test of the Super Bowl's drawing and ratings power.

because the Eagles, Vikings, and Jaguars have zero, zero players that have been nationally marketed. The casual fan won't know a single player. And regular fans won't know many more.

It would be a Super Bowl without stars (so to speak) if NE gets bounced by Jax

All of them. New England looked strong and the Vikings won in a miracle finish. Not sure what you are referring to. Now, if it's Philly vs. Jacksonvile, I'll agree.

The Super Bowl will always have great ratings due of the number of people who bet on it.

I guess we'll see.

but there has only been 1 Super Bowl in the last 14 years without the Steelers, Patriots, Packers, or Peyton Manning. Those are the teams people are used to seeing.

(Ravens vs. 49ers 5 years ago)

It looks like that 2013 Ravens/49ers game had 108 million US viewers. The 2012 and 2014 games had about 111 million viewers.

Pigeon88 said:

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The NFL is a going downhill pretty quickly. So many thing have contributed. The first was free agency and players switching teams. Then skyrocketing salaries that made it too expensive for regular folks to attend games. Then the medical issues. Now the player protests and the fact that alot of the games just arent entertaining. Most people cant relate to the players and dont find them likeable. Honestly, fantasy football is the only positive thing they have trending. It will be long and slow, but the NFL is losing it.

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well if you want to get all meta with it, then you need to consider that the NFL (i think its reasonable to say) is going to get a bump next season. The tax cut bill is going to give everyone across the board more disposable income and that can only be a good thing for the NFL, I would figure. Cash in the pocket is well-placed to go towards a ticket to a game, or a tablet to watch the game on, or a jersey.

NFL football is the national sport of America. It's not just going to go away, humans need sports. I don't see how people don't get that. Ergo, as America goes, so goes the NFL (except when NFL is tripping over their dick and making things harder on themselves).

Sooo...I think if the NFL

• Somehow gets the kneeling issue handled in the offseason
• Possibly gets a new commissioner so they can say to the public "we got rid of the old guy who handled that kneeling thing so bad"
• Which would also have the benefit of getting the President (who im a fan of) to shut the hell up about it at last
• All while there is a generally good economy plus the tax cut putting more cash in everyone's pocket so everyones making more money

...then the NFL will be poised to do well in 2018, and the numbers will bear it out. This is presuming that these things happen, as I'd say its safe to say they'd patch up the big problems and outweigh any of the negative issues remaining.

Just my two cents, willing to accept feedback on it.

reb, said:

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Sooo...I think if the NFL

• Somehow gets the kneeling issue handled in the offseason
• Possibly gets a new commissioner so they can say to the public "we got rid of the old guy who handled that kneeling thing so bad"
• Which would also have the benefit of getting the President (who im a fan of) to shut the hell up about it at last
• All while there is a generally good economy plus the tax cut putting more cash in everyone's pocket so everyones making more money

...then the NFL will be poised to do well in 2018, and the numbers will bear it out. This is presuming that these things happen, as I'd say its safe to say they'd patch up the big problems and outweigh any of the negative issues remaining.

Just my two cents, willing to accept feedback on it.

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The kneeling issue will be handled no differently than it is now. They will remain quiet about it and it will go away.

Possibly getting a new commissioner? no basis to think thats happening. He's just signed a new deal. And whether right or wrong, most of the owners aren't upset about the way Goodell handled the kneeling thing. Any owner that wanted kneelers punished was free to do it themselves. See Jerry Jones' comments.

I wonder how much of a decline in the ratings is really due to people streaming the games (cord cutters) and the outdated way of sampling and measuring viewers is not able to reflect viewership

W said:

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I guess we'll see.

but there has only been 1 Super Bowl in the last 14 years without the Steelers, Patriots, Packers, or Peyton Manning. Those are the teams people are used to seeing.

(Ravens vs. 49ers 5 years ago)

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That's a small part of the reason that I dislike it. It needs some variety.

Patriots and Brady about to get ring #6

I agree. There is somewhat of a Patriots fatigue factor

so to wrap us this thread...

Super Bowl TV ratings were down. About 103 million viewers.

5 million or so less than the aforementioned Ravens-49ers game 5 years ago. And the lowest viewer total since the Steelers-Cardinals Super Bowl 8 years ago.

fair to wonder what the ratings would have been if Jax had held onto its 4th quarter lead vs. NE

A despite the lower rating, commercials will cost more next year & a network will pay NFL more to televise it

ORAggieFan said:

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You say losing it quickly then end with long and slow.

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I know, right? That's backwards. You should build them up about it being long and slow and then just finish quickly and leave.

I'd just like to point out the fallacy that tickets are expensive because of huge player salaries. No, the players have huge salaries because people are willing to pay for expensive tickets and rapidly consume TV content leading to bug TV deals for the league.

I can't speak for other league, but the NFL player salary pool and cap are based on TV revenue. That money goes to the entire NFL which splits it evenly among the teams. Some percentage of that entire number goes to players and sets the salary cap.

Tickets sales and concessions go straight to the owners and not the players. Some of that goes to coaching, charter jets and such, but not to player salaries. The main reason for the push for new stadiums with higher prices and luxury boxes is owners wanting more revenue that they don't have to share with players.

As far as the lower ratings, I expect it to get worse before it gets better. I used to love watching live sporting events in person or on TV. Now I'm too spoiled by netflix, amazon prime video and my DVR. I don't want to be told I have to watch something at a certain time and endure the insane amount of advertising when I do. It's a terrible viewer-unfriendly business model nowadays. Sometimes I like to go back and watch games later, but usually by then it's been spoiled a million times by friends, family or media.

I'm fairly certain that ticket revenue is included in the salary pool. The owners don't equally share it, but it goes into the formula for the cba for salaries.

I don't disagree that TV contracts might be coming down in the future, but we aren't there yet. I barely watch any sports any more but that's more of a function of a wife, kids, job and a house eating up all of my free time.

You're right. Apparently it's all shared except corporate deal and luxury boxes. So the point about luxury boxes and stadiums is still valid.

http://fortune.com/2016/02/23/nfl-salary-cap/

Quote:

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Under the collective bargaining agreement, a percentage of ticket sales, sponsorship money, and media deals go into the pool shared with players; specific items like premium seating and corporate mega-deals are excluded from revenue-sharing because those funds are often directed toward the mutual benefit of stadium upkeep and renovations.

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ramblin_ag02 said:

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As far as the lower ratings, I expect it to get worse before it gets better. I used to love watching live sporting events in person or on TV. Now I'm too spoiled by netflix, amazon prime video and my DVR. I don't want to be told I have to watch something at a certain time and endure the insane amount of advertising when I do. It's a terrible viewer-unfriendly business model nowadays. Sometimes I like to go back and watch games later, but usually by then it's been spoiled a million times by friends, family or media.

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That's the problem with live sports. I watch ALMOST all tv shows on a delayed basis so I can spin past the commercials, but it's difficult to do that with live sporting events unless you have the interwebs, Tweeter, etc. shut off.

College football attendance is down. Maybe it's not just the NFL, but football in general