The NFL Is Seriously Concerned With Empty Stadiums

MSN ^ | September 13, 2017 | Ryan Phillips

[C19fan]

Week 1 of the NFL season had plenty of important stories worth following, but maybe the most entertaining was the mostly empty stadiums in Los Angeles and Santa Clara. Both the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers had sparse crowds for their home openers, and that has not gone unnoticed by the NFL.

[boycott]

Good for them. They let thugs ruin their league.

[ThunderSleeps]

Let's see, the last time I went to an NFL game was 4 to 5 years ago - I honestly don't remember. What I do remember was an hour and a half drive each way; paying an arm and a leg for parking a fair hike away from the stadium; paying an arm and a leg for a meal before the game; paying an arm and a leg and then some for the tickets; freezing my backside off; nearly punching-out a drunk rude fan who insulted my wife...

And the NFL wonders why I haven't been back? I dropped Direct-TV and NFL Sunday Ticket years ago too - for basically the same reason. The cost simply climbed too high. Hey NFL, are you listening to your fans? Here are some suggestions:

• Drop the prices of everything, across the board. Everything associated with the NFL has gotten too expensive: tickets, parking, food/drink, merchandise, TV and online access. You are pricing yourself out of the market.
• Drop the political correctness. Don't put women or minorities on the sidelines, in the locker rooms, in the announcer's booth - unless they actually know what they are talking about! If they know the game, I don't care who you have or what they look like. I want to hear insights from someone who knows more about the game or team than I do, not some yahoo you selected to check a diversity box.
• Put an end to the political BS by your players and announcers right now, hard and fast. It is a free Country, everyone is entitled to their opinion, right/wrong/stupid. But when they put on the uniform, or speak at an official NFL function or use their position within the NFL as a platform - they represent YOU and the league. Their idiocy reflects badly on you. You may or may not agree with their politics, but it is a virtual certainty any political actions or statements will alienate some of your fan base - possibly a large part of it. Best bet is to simply keep everything about football, and stomp hard on anyone who violates that.
• Ad revenue. I know you love the money but jeez. Games take far too long with far too many commercial breaks. Wonder why no-one dedicates an entire day to going to a game? Because I can DVR it, let it get ahead by an hour or so, then zip through the entire game in a fraction of the time by jumping over all the ads and other BS. I like football, but I'm not willing to give up that much time.
• De-wussify the game. Seriously, why don't you put a tu-tu on some of the players. I realize injuries are a problem and you're trying to minimize them but come on. Give the refs more discretion on unnecessary roughness, and dump the myriad of rules that have crept into the game. It is now common to see a flag, then a conference among the officials as they try to decide the correct interpretation of what they think they saw and can/should call. Ridiculous.

Work on those things NFL, or your popularity will fade - and with it the big money you've grown all too fond of. You're already seeing the first rumblings of the coming collapse. It is unlikely you will ever win me back as far as going to games in person. I live 2000 miles from my team's home stadium and the local team and their fans are a-holes, I won't go there again for any reason. You could win me back as a sports-bar fan, maybe even as a Sunday Ticket subscriber - but you've got to make a lot of changes and reverse course in order to make that happen. Consider carefully the number of fans you are alienating on this course vs the number you are (or apparently are not) picking up. Choose wisely.

[Obadiah]

Purely an anecdotal observation, but for decades the primary commercial sponsors of the NFL were Detroit pick-up truck advertising with rough and tough patriotism. Similarly, beer commercials showed rugged guys (except for Budweiser) enjoying a beer. And yet in the last few years the NFL has donned pink uniforms, embraced homosexuality, and has allowed anti-American protests to continue unimpeded. Coupled with ESPN going full liberal proselytizing, is there any wonder why NFL seats are unfilled?

I think this is just the start of the trend. A lot of fans were under the self impression that they could never do without endless football and now are seeing that the price is too high to continue with the ongoing indoctrination and are doing just fine with a whole lot less football viewing.

Moreover, 3+ hours for one game that consist of 15 minutes of actual game play and about 2 hours and 45 minutes of commercials. In today’s world investing 3+ hours in a single football game is asking a lot. I can’t imagine the amount of time season ticket holders invest preparing and traveling to and from games.

[tjd1454]

Wisconsinite here, born and bred, but transplanted to Virginia. Question: did any of the Packers refuse to honor the National Anthem?

[LS]

Thank you. Every one of those.

How about this? Sameness.

Remember when Dallas had the shifts & the flex? Or when Raiders constantly threw past 15 yards? Or the 4-6? Or tge West Coast offense?

Many teams had distinct personalities. Maybe “the game has chanved” or maybe no one has the guts to be different.

[joesbucks]

Couldn’t agree more. Between the expense and the fact that it eats up an entire day I simply have no interest in going. Plus there isn’t an NFL team less than 2 hours from where I live, so add in the drive time to the game time. And that doesn’t consider finding parking, paying for parking and walking to the stadium.

[Delta 21]

Maybe they would feel better if they just took a knee this season and sat around with all their players of color and hugged and sang Kuhm-Bye-Yall for all of their fans this year.

Football has become all boring just watching semi-talented athletes clash in a team competition of skill and cunning. We need more of this kind of distraction.

[Fiji Hill]

At NFL stadiums nowadays, fans have to go through airport-style security checkpoints to get into the stadium, which probably keeps a lot of them away.

[Alberta's Child]

Item #4 in your list has been a pet peeve of mine about football for years.

As far as I know, the only other sport where the clock runs during stoppages in play is soccer. That speaks volumes about how dull football is when you compare the "play time" with the "clock time" in a game.

[hal ogen]

NF who? Who cares. There are many other thing to do rather than watching commercials and these overpaid, America-hating fools.

[HamiltonJay]

Nah, that’s tv ratings... not attendance. Attendance boils down to seat cost more than anything else.

[Wolfie]

I don’t know why anyone would watch a game period. 3 plus hours of game stoppages and commercials for 10 - 15 minutes of actual playing time. I watch NFL Redzone, which covers every game without all of that.

[Alberta's Child]

The trend you describe sounds like it's not based on NFL business decisions that are being made proactively, but on the NFL reacting to changing demographics and the decline in its customer base.

1. Beer and pickup truck commercials were the norm when fans were younger.

2. A decade or two later, you started to see ads for luxury cars and pharmaceuticals all over the TV during an NFL game. This wasn't because the NFL suddenly decided to market itself to newer, older fans. It was their traditional fan base simply getting older.

3. Now that traditional fan base is dying off, and those that remain are likely to be found in nursing homes.

The homosexualization and feminization of the NFL today reflects the sobering reality they're facing: Young heterosexual men aren't big football fans anymore. So the NFL has a desperate need to replace their traditional fans with other customers -- many of whom aren't even football fans at all.

[dangerdoc]

A trip to a professional sports game is a mugging in disguise.

[central_va]

Ok, you are saying that the current huge downward spike in NFL game attendance has nothing to do with racial politics? What the hell?

[Hyman Roth]

Golly, I wonder what the problem might be ...

Global Warming?

[ScottinVA]

I read that the problem for weekend one was hurricane Irma.

I guess that's their story and they're sticking to it. They're going to have to come up with something (besides the obvious and clear reasons) to explain away those empty seats on the WEST coast, though...

[Bigg Red]

You have an incomplete equation.

empty seats =
greedy owners + displays of anti-Americanism + tawdry half-time shows

[nonliberal]

Has to be the election.

[Alberta's Child]

Something else I noticed is that the article suggests the NFL is primarily concerned about the "optics" of sparse crowds. In other words, they're more concerned about the image of the NFL for television viewers than they are about gate revenue.

Mark my words on this one, folks: In the not-too-distant future, fans watching NFL games on television will be seeing a broadcast that has been digitally altered to show a packed stadium.