POLL: Why is NFL viewership so low?

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[Jeff Chandler]

POLL: Why is NFL viewership so low?

Competition from the hurricanes and the presidential race
Fans' disgust over anti-American protests
A combination of factors
I'm not sure

[Starboard]

Football has become a gaudy spectacle of show boating prima donnas. There are much better things to do with your time than waste a Sunday afternoon watching immature, overpaid athletes and an endless stream of inane commercials.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

I can't stand Colon Kaperjerkoff. Not only for dissing the flag, but because the guy is such a freakin' fraud. He's about as black as Vanilla Ice. Like Obama, the only thing black about him was his drop and run dad after which WHITE people had to pick up the responsibility and raise him. What the F does this guy know about what blacks go through? He was raised in a white neighborhood by a white family and gets a million buck career, totally sheltered life and he wants us to believe he is Colin from the 'hood with his gangsta tattoos and that monster afro he grows and all these other players are being suckered into doing what this fraud is doing. How many cops killed on the job has this WHITE BOY ever knelt for?

[Biggirl]

Right now, I am paying close attention to not only to Boston, but to Cleveland, and to Houston as well. The AL has gotten a lot better overall. These 3 teams are proof. Even Cleveland lost a game this weekend, ending a string of wins.

[Alberta's Child]

One clear signal was when there was more interest in the superbowl commercials than in the game.

Excellent point. When I look back and try to remember when -- and why -- my interest in the NFL started to decline, this was one of things that immediately comes to mind.

[GrandJediMasterYoda]

Why is NFL viewership so low?

Fans’ disgust over anti-American protests (38%)

A combination of factors (37%)

Competition from the hurricanes and the presidential race
(22%)

I’m not sure (4%)

A combination of factors is second. A combination of WHAT factors? Absolutely 100% it IS because of the anti-American protests.

[dhs12345]

Yikes! No jack stands in the front and tiny stands in the back.

[Alberta's Child]

Football doesn’t have a “near monopoly” at all. In fact, one of the biggest factors in the NFL’s decline has been the dramatic increase in entertainment options with cable, satellite, and web streaming TV.

[Alas Babylon!]

It really all started to fade away when the Colts snuck out of Baltimore in the wee hours of the morning.

After that, fans and cities were held for economic ransom to team owners to get perks, kickbacks and new stadiums.

“Don’t do our bidding and pay? We’ll move to another city.”

[Chickensoup]

yes

[Chickensoup]

Nice looking family. Looks like they got stuck with a doozy.

When one adopts, one gets the birthparents, with better vocabularies.

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

Thats it.

[Alberta's Child]

I think demographics are a much bigger factor here than a lot of folks realize. NFL fans are aging and dying, and the next couple of generations simply don’t have the same passion for football that their parents and grandparents did.

[HANG THE EXPENSE]

Looks like a 71 Mercury Cyclone.Always been a gearhead and it shows.What was the question again?

[Biggirl]

Second it.

Often once a favorite player retires, so does the interest.

[eyeamok]

nuff said!

[apocalypto]

Where else would anybody with their low IQ (on the average), with main ability being to play a game, earn this kind of money?

[Alberta's Child]

That's a great point. There's another side to that, too.

In the age of the salary cap and loose free agency rules, players change teams with boring regularity -- so a fan of a particular player often loses interest in both the player AND the team when the player goes elsewhere.

I grew up a huge fan of the New York Giants just as they were becoming a perennial contender in the Lawrence Taylor era. If he had been signed by another team after his third or fourth year in the league, I think my interest in the Giants and the NFL would have ended right then.

[dfwgator]

And the fact is, sports is driven by personalities, most fans don’t just “root for the laundry”.

[Let's Roll]

Fantasy football is another reason I have seen given in the past but not mentioned much this year.

Young people - the current and future NFL audience - have swarmed to fantasy football. They don’t care about the actual games just the stats which they wait until Sunday night to check on. Instead of watching the games on Sunday afternoon, they go to the mall or play video games.

Ironically when the shrinking NFL audience finally kills off football, fantasy fans will have to find another source to ‘draft’ their ‘teams’ from.

Even the advertisers seem to be cutting off their noses by focusing on fantasy football. Have already seen 2 different Directv commercials featuring Peyton Manning as the commish of ff. Using Manning’s well known over the top attention to detail etc., they are funny, but just encourage lack of interest in actual games.

[dfwgator]

It’s going to happen too in the NBA. Most of the superstars of today are not nearly as likable as Bird, Magic and Jordan were.