This year has seen quite a few blackouts for games that haven’t been sold out. Even many of the games that avoided the blackout have lots of empty seats and the remaining tickets were bought up by a sponsor at a heavy discount. While the economy sucks right now, I think that more people are choosing to stay home by choice.
Going to an NFL game isn’t cheap. The last game I attended was the 2009 NFC Championship game. The Cardinals had never advanced that far and I was able to get upper level seats at face value. Still the game cost about $400 for two people between tickets, parking, food, and beers.
I doubt I’ll go to another NFL game. I think I spent more time watching the game on the Jumbotron that I did watching the action on the field. I was also annoyed at the large number of asshole drunks. I know a sporting event isn’t a church service and I don’t mind profanity. But, so many of the people around me took it to another level. 4 hours of F-bombs and other profanity nonstop. Some other drunk jerk ripped the paper towel dispenser off the wall. Um, why? Spend at least 150 dollars to go to a game and get so drunk you have to take out your frustrations on a paper towel dispenser? For some reason, I don’t get the same experience at an NFL game as I do at baseball or hockey.
I’ve got a 42 inch plasma tv and I’d far rather watch the NFL at home even if I had the money to go to a game. I can sit on the couch with my beer in hand and laptop in front of me to follow my fantasy teams. That 200-300 that I’d pay for a regular season game can go into the budget for a 60 inch plasma!
See, I feel the opposite. It’s football. It’s a blue-collar sport for red-blooded adults. With all the ways the NFL makes it a pain in the ass to attend a game, shouldn’t fans at least be allowed to carry on like drunken idiots? My stepdad and my brother went to a game recently, and they were shocked by the number of cops and security guards keeping an eye on the fans. They said it felt like being in detention.
If the home teams want to designate some sections of the stadium for fans bringing their children, that’s fine. But let everyone else have a good time. It’s what makes for a good home field advantage.
This is probably the biggest factor. Football is more enjoyable to watch on TV than it is in person (especially with all the finger-waggers in the stands telling you to sit down or tattling on you).
It’s both, I think. There will always be people who go to football games religiously, buy season tickets and the like, but for the occasional game attendee it’s becoming somewhat cost-prohibitive in this economy, so the general admission seats aren’t getting filled. My favorite team, the Steelers, haven’t had any problem selling out historically, but they put a good product on the field. For the traditionally lousy teams and teams in relatively weak markets it’s a tough sell at those prices, and that’s where blackouts come into play.
If they slashed ticket prices in half in weak markets they’d sell out, and probably make more money to boot at the expense of “devaluing” the market for the future when they actually put up a good team and people want to see them play. Which, of course, is why they don’t do it.
This is like going to the Indy 500. You can see it much better on TV. Way, way better on TV. But even the best big screen can’t duplicate the experience of being at Indy. The same is true I believe of an NFL game. See it better on TV? Sure, but you don’t have the experience of being at the game.
A problem I have with FB games is the other fans. Too many people who won’t sit down and scream all the time no matter what happens. Guess I am getting old.
Personally, I’ve given up on football altogether. It’s ethically tough for me to support a sport where brain damage at epidemic levels is an accepted part of the game.
I suspect, however, that has very little to do with why attendance is off.
Brian damage for FB players is not new , it’s just talked about more now. Also these guys get lots of other injuries that can screw them up for life such as knee and shoulder problems.
Then you have the fact that a large chunk of these guys end up flat broke after they retire - this includes guys who make millions per year. Many don’t save money or they continue to spend too much when they quit.
Well, I would say recognition of the scope of the problem is new. Before, people thought only in terms of injuries visible on the field, but now it’s realized that the cumulative effect of repeated blows to the head is devastating over the long haul. And in fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if the second problem you mentioned – bad money management – had something to do with the first.
NBA has an even worse problem with guys going broke after retirement, don’t think that is caused by head blows. Mostly it’s just caused by people over spending. I think Patrick Ewing said “yes , we make a lot , but we spend a lot too.”
It’s undeniable that some people get severely hurt for life playing football. Of course, that happens in every other sport as well, but that’s neither here nor there. What is relevant is that you can’t take the incidence of post-career indigence and idiocy and extrapolate head injury data from that. The truth is that a large proportion of players are dumber than a bag of hammers and have been from the beginning.
The reason that a guy like Myron Rolle is such a big story is that players like that are exceedingly rare. Hell, they all have to take the Wonderlic Test before they’re drafted and most of their scores are genuinely pathetic.
While I have no objection to the idea that football safety must be improved, I also maintain that they choose to do something dangerous and they can stop any time they want, so perhaps that is the ultimate proof that they’re all a little cracked in the head before they ever play a down.
While declining attendance is interesting, I’m more interested in whether or not the gross revenues the attendance generates is going up or down. And there’s no way in hell the NFL is ever going to make that information public.
I live in the New York area and while I am a Steeler fan, I live in a sea of Jets and Giants fans. For as long as I remember both teams had waiting lists for season tickets that were in the thousands. People would put their kids on the list in hopes they would get a call when they grew up and had kids of their own.
And then the new stadium happened. Ticket prices went up and they forced people to by Personal Seat Licenses in order to buy tickets. Thousands of people for both teams had to give up their tickets and the costs were so prohibitive, they blew through the long standing waiting lists in a matter of weeks and still had tickets to sell.
It got to the point where the Jets are direct marketing looking for people to buy season tickets (I got something from them in the mail).
The games still sell out but I would say the costs definitely changed things.
It’s the PSLs that wiped out the waiting lists. Buying season tickets for a couple grand is one thing. Laying out $20k just for the privilege to be able to pay another couple grand for season tickets is a joke.
Cost and the economy working together. Toss in the endless expansion into new areas and it makes sense.
It used to be a young parent could take his kid to games. Now kids are drifting away from the game. They have trouble getting the excitement from the TV. So they will be less fired up by it.
It is Madden that kept many kids into it the last few years.
I just checked the Raiders’ prices (I despise them, but they don’t sell out much, and they’re local). I was surprised that the worst tickets were only $36.00 apiece. I was under the impression that most teams had even terrible seats at about $75 and up.
I grew up in Spokane WA, the nearest pro team was the Seahawks. I went to one live college game prior to playing youth football in the 7th grade. You don’t have to go to a pro game as a kid to love football. Pop Warner football is played at record numbers, exceeding itself in team and participants with every season. A bad Monday Night Football game went head to head with the World Series and won in viewership.
The reasons stadiums are not selling out are:
Football is one of the only sports that is better on TV.
Cable TV packages now offer all the games, going to a game is an all-day event, meaning you are going to be missing all the other football being played.
The popularity of fantasy football emphasizes following the whole league rather than one favorite team.
This is a slight hijack but that right there is the main reason I can’t get into fantasy football. I am a Steeler fan and the one time I tried playing I found myself in positions where I had to in a sense root against the Steelers. To avoid this, my choices were to pick a sub optimal team or not play, so I never played again.
Agreed. For me there is one team and one team only. Rooting for a team to win that is not your favorite should only be done when it benefits your team. How can I look favorably at a team or player that I want the Steelers to kill the next week? It’s easier for me to simply hate them all 100% of the time. I’m not objective enough to play fantasy football.