With all these [del]data points[/del] anecdotes, I think I should give the other side.
My viewing hasn’t decreased at all.
I don’t ever watch pregame programs, nor ever in my life watched Sports Center. I could care less about fantasy football. I have no over saturation issue.
My team hasn’t changed their logo, location or stadium, and tends to keep the same players year to year (well, better than average). We’ve had two starting QBs in 25 years.
I watch my one game a week (Even when we suck.) ever since I was old enough to care.
I am 55. On Thanksgiving we’re going to watch the Packers play the Bears in the 2010 conference championship. (Don’t spoil the ending…). I guess I don’t represent the average viewer any more.
Now if you were to ask why I quit watching the NBA I could write a book.
Frankly, what the totality of the responses so far suggests to me is that we live in busy times, and we are offered so many different forms of entertainment, that it just seems unlikely any one thing can dominate our attention the way it used to.
I can stream basically any movie ever made that didn’t just come out in the last two months. I have access to the Internet, which wasn’t a thing at all not long ago. Other TV shows of unsurpassed quality are available in such vast amounts I don’t have time to watch them all. Life is getting busier and busier. I just don’t have the time people used to have to fix myself on a couch for hours and hours to watch a sport. You can come up with reasons - I don’t like this team, players are jerks, etc. - but I suspect the reasons are often applied after the fact. People are just really busy.
Other things to do. Years ago I would be able to lay around for a full day on Sunday watching the games, and again Monday after work. At halftime on Monday, it was a treat to see the highlights of virtually every game from the prior day.
When my kids were young, I stopped having so much free time, and what free time I did get I chose to spend somewhere else. I cannot remember the last time I sat down to watch a game in it’s entirety - I mostly have it on in the background, if at all. As others have stated, ditching cable also constrains your viewing options - and to tell you the truth - I don’t feel like I am missing much, other than the sideline hotties and the overhead camera.
I love football, but I just CAN’T watch EVERY game they televise. I don’t have time!
I watch the Giants whenever I can. I watch one other good game a week. But I can’t commit to two games on Sunday afternoon, another Sunday night, another Monday night AND another Thursday night.
There’s nothing wrong with the game per se- there’s just too much football and I can’t watch it all.
So, due to several seemingly-innocuous changes (limiting practices, the rookie salary scale, drafting more underclassemen, the popularity of the spread offense in college), the NFL has managed to populate its teams with ill-prepared, inexperienced, and ultimately forgettable & replaceable players. There are fewer stars than ever, with shorter careers, and the on-field product is a mess. Of course people are tuning out.
You may be my mirror universe doppleganger. I can write you a book about why I stopped watching the NFL altogether (the world’s shittiest, most predatory owners; the horrific toll it inflicts on the players; the lack of guaranteed contracts, the monolithic oversaturation, the declining quality of play…), but it’s the NBA that has replaced the NFL to provide my non-UK-basketball sports fix. The NBA is much better run, more fun (and easier) to watch, doesn’t destroy the players’ brains, and the teams aren’t all owned by sociopaths.
I will say that IN PERSON, an NBA game is absolutely the best experience of any major pro sport, on average. If someone isn’t an NBA fan, get good seats to an NBA game and you’ll be a fan soon enough.
The early game on Sunday starts at 8 p.m. in my time zone, so I would watch the first game and maybe the first quarter of the second game. I would watch the games no matter how bad the game was.
Now, I’ve found I just lost patience. The games take too long, and there are too many commercials. It seems like there are players, coaches, or both, complaining about something after every play. The team that I’ve followed for years, the Ravens, does not really have a quality product on the field . . . and I don’t think I can name more than two players on the team. I basically look at the scores on Monday morning to see if the Ravens won, and if the teams that I hate lost.
I grew up loving football . . . my dad had season tickets to Baltimore Colts’ games for years, and I loved going. It’s just not the same anymore, and my real interest has long gone.
For me it’s a combination of things I used to watch a lot of NFL but now I rarely remember it’s on on Sundays and even Saturdays are becoming less about college football for different reasons.
With the pros my problem started with being a fan of the 49ers while living in Colorado. I could only get 4 games to watch on Sunday and rarely were the 9ers one of my choices so since I didn’t care about the teams I watched less. I started playing fantasy football to help me care about the games I was able to watch and had ESPN to keep me updated on the stories behind the game to help with the caring.
Then I cut the cord and lost ESPN so without the additional background drama my interest dropped more (this was also a huge effect on my college football watching since 90% of the games are on cable at least the NFL hasn’t don’t that as much) and of course I couldn’t watch Monday night football any more either at that point. The last straw was my fantasy football league shut down this year after being poorly attended last year as life caught most of the participants.
So now I can’t watch my team, I don’t know the story lines and I don’t have a gambling interest in the games so I don’t pay attention. Of course that means I don’t know when I could watch the nines since I don’t even bother checking. Since I don’t care I’ve offered to give up one day of football to my wife so I can watch all day Saturday but since I only get the broadcast games most of the time I turn it off due to not wanting to watch a blow out or hating both teams.
This is an interesting perception. The NFL has always struck me as the one league willing to call out its officials when they fuck up. In the specific incident you mentioned, Dean Blandino (head of NFL officiating) clearly called out two errors at the end of the half. The NFL also basically apologized to the Seahawks for the officials jobbing them in the Saints game. Ya win some, ya lose some.
I’ll tell you what it isn’t: it has nothing to do with players not standing for the anthem. I think it’s too much football. Nearly every day has college and/or NFL games, it’s quite easy to get too much of it. Plus there aren’t any big personalities playing- no Namath or Marino or Elway. The players are good, but there aren’t any dominating players who make you want to watch the game.
Given that the average career was ALREADY only c. 6 years before (article is behind a paywall), that represents a hugely significant percentage drop. :eek:
This is one area where the NFL has really lot its touch. They do not market their players nearly as well as the NBA or even MLB. For crying out loud, look what they just dragged Tom Brady through for the last year and a half. Like Brady or not, he could be the NFL’s LeBron James or David Ortiz. Cam Newton could be the NFL’s Mike Trout, but instead everyone complains that they do a shitty job of protecting him.
Didn’t used to be that way. Elway, Marino, Bo Jackson, Joe Montana, etc.; those guys were held high as the faces of their franchise and of the League.
I’m not sure personality is that important. Montana had the personality of soggy bread, but the NFL did a better job of pushing him and his performance on the field as a story. It’s not how many commercials they’re in.
