Dr. Sivana wrote:
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Thursday Night Football was a bad idea. The only Thursday football we should ever see is on Thanksgiving. The ratings are gonna stink for this one.
Yup. First it was Sunday afternoons 1PM starts in each time zone (except for a handful of games on Saturday after college season ended).
Then they added Monday Night Football. Fine. It’s like what Friday Night Fights used to be, and a way to see teams you don’t see in your local market.
Then Sunday Night Football and Thursday Night Football, and expanded playoffs, 12 teams instead of 8. Besides the extra week of playoffs and a net +4 new teams, the BYE week and the expanded schedule made the season 20 weeks long instead of 17.
Then NFL ticket, satellites, NFL Network and the Internet came along so you could see ALL the games, not just a local game or two, and a game of the week. Instead of NFC on CBS, AFC on NBC, and MNF on ABC...FOX, ESPN, NFLN, Amazon, Twitter(!) and more I don’t know about get added to the mix.
Can we say OVEREXPOSURE?
And that is besides the Kapernick-type garbage, that is a catalyst to make the whole thing crumble. They had me at the pink socks, and this year men kissing on NFL PSAs.
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I think you summed this whole thing up even better than I did in my previous post. Overexposure, without a doubt. And a growing number of fans are simply sick and tired of being insulted by all the P.C. garbage constantly being shoved in our faces.
I’m now openly rooting for the league’s decline to continue.
Here’s where I think the problem began in earnest. In 1975, NFL football was already the nation’s #1 sport. Like all televised sports, there was no expectation of drawing anything but MEN watching the games. It was understood that the ladies would watch a movie on another channel on Sunday afternoons, chat with friends, indulge in hobbies or whatever. If lucky, a few wives would watch to share the experience with their husbands.
THEN, it became about more than just the game. It became the SPECTACLE. The disease of “professional” cheerleaders spread from Dallas to Chicago to Los Angeles and elsewhere (yes, women like seeing the cheerleaders, too, but not in the same way).
Special interest backstories became more than “Dang, look at Jim Brown run over those tacklers. Look at John Capelleti move the whole defensive line! Look at Unitas thread the needle!”
TV graphics, girl hostesses on the NFL Today (first Phyllis George, then Jayne Kennedy who read scores backwards), moved the NFL away from its natural domain.
At some point, the audience to the Super Bowl expanded dramatically by building up the story line and moving the game to the evening (Cowboys/Broncos), and a little after that the commercials became events in and of themselves. Now everyone including women and kids getting involved was as American as Trick or Treating on Halloween.
And there was more money.
And the players wanted their cut.
It was always a business. But when it became a voracious business relying on unencumbered growth, decay in the game experience became inevitable.
The PC came along the way, as NO ONE can be alienated. Innocent words by Jimmy the Greek and Howard Cosell meant their end. While ideally no groups could be offended, the most easily lost eyeballs (the women) and the organized ones that can create bigger problems (Operation PUSH types), will have to be placated first. The guys who were there all along, the middle-aged guy with a Budweiser or Miller Lite on one side and some Lays Potato Chips on the other, the NFL assumed he would stay put, because he was the before it became a spectacle.