There's a racial skew to the fanbases in Atlanta. The Falcons have a huge black fanbase, the Dawgs not so much.
NFL's Declining Viewership: One Slice at a Time
- Thread starter tims4wins
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Appreciate the snark and the lame straw man, but you might want to do some sort of research around content consumption or, hell, even read the article before chiming in with the hot takzzzzz
Are you seriously under the impression that NFL fans are turning off the TV in favor of perusing their team's Twitter feed during the game? Do you believe that whimsical GIFs that celebrate players and plays on Sunday afternoon are a substitute for watching the actual game? In what alternate universe is that a choice anyone is making, or even contemplating?
Please stop.
Beyond laughable. I can't tell whether you don't get the way the sport is followed, or the way the internet works, or a LOT of column A and a LOT of column B. Frankly, I don't give a shit.
Yeah, people go online to their message boards - you might want to check that out, it is a pretty big deal - to FO, to various bloggers et al immediately after the game and start breaking the shit down out of the game. That you don't realize that this phenomenon is growing is pretty hilarious. I guess you want to make a point about how the NFL are meanies because something something something Goodell, but it just isn't the case on this one. That you are doing it while posting on a sports message board and not even noting the irony is kind of consistent with your level of posting.
Serious question, you keep saying things about hot takes.....do you have any idea what a hot take is? I won't bother checking your answer, but someone might care.
Panthers-Bucs with Cam Newton not playing is about the worst MNF matchup you're going to get. No surprise it was down sharply compared to a year-ago matchup that featured one of the league's top five draws (Pittsburgh).
The 22% drop on Sunday night is actually less than I would have expected, going up against the debate. Of course, that one was a good matchup from a ratings perspective (Giants-Packers); the article doesn't say what the year-ago matchup was, but I'm guessing it wasn't as strong a draw.
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Here's an article (check out the pic) in the Atlantic that suggests that DeflateGate might have a hand in it:
Is it possible to OD on schadenfreude?
4. The entertainment explanation: It’s the twilight of a golden age in football. [...]
Does the NFL have a budding star problem? Maybe. Among the few players with the best-selling NFL jerseys from 2013 and 2014, three have retired (Peyton Manning, Marshawn Lynch, and Calvin Johnson), three have been suspended (Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson, and Johnny Manziel), and two have been benched (Colin Kaepernick and Robert Griffin III).
Who knew that trashing one of your game's stars for no reason could hurt the NFL in the pocketbook.Does the NFL have a budding star problem? Maybe. Among the few players with the best-selling NFL jerseys from 2013 and 2014, three have retired (Peyton Manning, Marshawn Lynch, and Calvin Johnson), three have been suspended (Tom Brady, Adrian Peterson, and Johnny Manziel), and two have been benched (Colin Kaepernick and Robert Griffin III).
Is it possible to OD on schadenfreude?
His point was not at all what you are responding to above. What he said was that there is no evidence participation in (say) message boards reduces TV viewing. Are you aware of any? I am not an expert, but it would not surprise me if many, many people are 'multiscreening' and thus that the impact of message boards, twitter, etc. on tv ratings is pretty smally.
In particular, it seems like a tough case to make that there was some breakthrough between 2015 and 2016 that suggests multiscreen usage is a significant part of the ratings decline between those years.
We are referencing the league's mandate regarding posting video from games, which is new. Try to follow along.
Yes, and unless you are suggesting that people are not watching TV because they are instead watching those via twitter, forums, etc. the points Quintana and I have made stand.
I'll bet it's a revenue-sharing thing.
The NFL's national TV deal generates more revenue for the league and its owners than all other sources of revenue combined. That revenue is, of course, shared equally by the 32 teams; that's the single biggest reason why the NFL has better competitive balance than other professional sports leagues.
As technology evolves, a lot of video content that is delivered through TV today will eventually be delivered over the Internet in some way, shape or form. Unless the league intends to change its business model dramatically, it's crucial that the revenue from those new Internet video outlets be shared the same way as TV money is shared. The occasional video posted on Facebook or Twitter is not a big deal financially, but the principle is hugely important.
Also, the NFL probably has restrictions on rebroadcasting of game footage (including dissemination on the Internet) written into its contracts with broadcast partners. It's a lot easier to ensure compliance if you don't have 32 social media groups (with varying degrees of professionalism) at the club level posting video content.
Teams are obviously free to use their own social media accounts to share/retweet content from league accounts, so I don't see why this is a big deal from a fan perspective.
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I remember a few times last year when there was a matchup I was excited to watch and it ended up a steaming pile. So this year I haven't really bothered with similar sentiment. Kind of a fool me once shame on you, fool me....you can't get fooled again type thing.
Maybe right in the city ( I don't know), but the country folks (black & white) like the Dawgs.
I've felt this way since the year leading up to SEA SB over Manning. Most of these teams suck. Pitt is supposed to be good this year and they just waxed my guys but they had a ton of unforced errors. They could have won by more. It seems like the Pats are the only team that even practices.
DFG may not have killed Goodell's evil reign but bad ratings and loss of revenue most certainly will. I hope they continue to slide 'bigly' and that RG is blamed.
I'd like to see a ratings vs year chart before I make any judgments. Is this real, noise, a natural drop during an election year after years of unsustainable growth, etc? A chart would help.
If ratings slide, Goodell looks even smarter for signing long-term TV deals when he did. The only way he gets sacked anytime soon is if relations with the NFLPA deteriorate to a point where the owners decide that having someone else negotiate the next CBA is the only way to get an acceptable deal without taking a strike.
IMO a good CEO should identify a problem quickly and then goes about fact finding, and then absorbs the information and suggests various remedies. In this regard I expect the NFL and the ownership committees to explore the shit out of declining ratings to determine the cause(s), and suggest solutions, as appropriate. Maybe once Trump phenomena diminishes, and and the public become more accustomed to the slew of new QBs playing (ie lack of real star power hurts) rating may bounce.
It appears that Goodell has benefitted from the proverbial "rising tide that lifts all ships". He's got to figure why the tide went out and how to make it rise again.
I haven't read all 269 posts, but I wonder if the Red Zone and fantasy players interest in scoring plays as opposed to continuous game watching is part of the problem
Also has the NCAA seen like declines in their big game broadcasts?
It appears that Goodell has benefitted from the proverbial "rising tide that lifts all ships". He's got to figure why the tide went out and how to make it rise again.
I haven't read all 269 posts, but I wonder if the Red Zone and fantasy players interest in scoring plays as opposed to continuous game watching is part of the problem
Also has the NCAA seen like declines in their big game broadcasts?
I felt this way about the SNF game this week. Giants / Packers. 1-3 years ago I'd have it on start to at least half (depending on work schedule) if not to the end. Honestly, I turned it on for the first 5 minutes and flipped to something else. I'm not sure why I don't really care, but I don't.
I feel the same way about RedZone, etc. It's great to have on but i'm not glued to any games outside of the Pats anymore. Maybe it's because i've got a 2 year old? Maybe it's deflate gate? Maybe the games just aren't very good but I don't care half as much as I used to, even a year or two ago.
Edit 1: Replay is a major factor. It's terrible. Eliminate replays and go back to 2 coaches challenges. Every scoring play being reviewed is awful. The replays over catches is awful. It's like the Red Sox game the other night where the Sox benefited, but the play at 2nd should have been safe even though he came off the bag for a quarter inch. Come on.
Edit 2: Stupid penalties is a huge part of it as well, it's not NBA level but they're getting there. Illegal contact away from the play? Slight holding on a CB on the other side of the field? Illegal hands to the face on a lineman when they brush the helmet?
I could go on about the QB penalties but the defensive holding, illegal contact, illegal hands to the face (not blatant) and some of this other crap makes it a game of penalties.
In the end, Roger Goodell is going to kill the Golden Goose.
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There are still coaches challenges as well as the automatically reviewed plays. Typically the automatically reviewed plays, TDs and turnovers, are reviewed discreetly enough that you can't even tell they occurred. I don't see this is a problem. I do agree on the catch no catch point though. That part of the rule book makes football worse.
The automatic reviews are a weird thing to harp on for me.
Most of them happen so quickly (or don't happen) that they don't affect the flow of the game at all, the ones that don't happen quickly typically happen during a commercial - and then we get a quick summary when they come back. No big deal.
Nothing makes me not want to watch sports more than the feeling that things are unfair - and not allowing obvious mistakes to be corrected is a really good way to make a game seem unfair.
The networks are always going to have high speed cameras - the fans are always going to see things in slow-mo and high res. Not allowing the referees access to those things just guarantees that we have a lot of situations where seemingly blatant mistakes are made.
Reviews may not kill the flow of the game, but they can certainly damage the flow of the fan excitement level. Yay, it's a TD! Oh, it's under review. Yay, it's a big return off the interception! Hold on, replay indicates his knee might have been down so it may be coming back. Yay, it's a crucial catch on the sidelines on 3rd-and-12! Don't celebrate yet, they have to review multiple angles to decide catch-or-not-a-catch. If watching a game is a thrill ride, some of the bigger hills and tighter curves have been tamped down a bit by replay.
I get what you mean re: stealing some of the thunder of game changing plays. But that's something I'm personally willing to forgo to get the correct call.
It's tough because I am not eager to go back to not being able to review whether fumbles occurred or a ballcarrier broke the plane of the goal line. I guess that's why I'd lean to BB's call for allowing coaches to challenge everything, and then dumping the automatic reviews. Maybe even give the coaches one more challenge, but let them decide which plays are game-changing enough for review for the entire game.
My God. You are so comically uninformed on this issue it's pathetic. Please - regale us all with your evidence that NFL team social handles are a substitute for watching the game. From your IT perch in East Cackalackistan, you might want to consider for a moment that you don't actually know the vocation of everyone on the board.
Lots of good points here, and I think there's a lot of truth to this. Classic NFL under Goodell though, as they've over-reached by casting far too wide of a net in terms of prohibited content. I mean GIFs/memes using archival footage? Really?
And it's a big deal for the teams b/c Sunday is far and away their biggest day in terms of fan engagement, so if they are forced to recede to the lowest common denominator of League content, it's going to diminish the extent to which in they can use social to develop a deeper level of engagement with their fans.
Finally, let's be clear in terms current rights around NFL content. No teams have attempted to stream a live game or anything of the sort - the League's monopoly on live video content remains pretty well intact. So I'm not sure that what the teams were doing on social was a threat to the NFL's media model. That was never even a possibility. This strikes me as a land grab where the League simply wants a higher share of total/aggregate engagement for itself even though it won't impact the linear TV viewership that's getting the headlines.
EEI just had last night's SNF game down 38% from week 6 last year.
Not a great matchup, but not as bad as it could be.
Edit-looks like pats/Colts last year. First rematch after deflate gate. Would be interested to see if that was particularly highly rated for SNF
Not a great matchup, but not as bad as it could be.
Edit-looks like pats/Colts last year. First rematch after deflate gate. Would be interested to see if that was particularly highly rated for SNF
I'm watching WAY less because the NFL does not seem interested in me getting access to the games. I'm not going to switch to DirectTV for the NFL. They won't let me get digital Sunday Ticket, even though I cannot even install DirectTV where I live. I tried to get an audio stream of a national game last night on a long drive, but they want $80/yr to listen to audio. They won't let me stream games from my TV provider's app. This was one day of me trying to watch the NFL.
In an internet age, they have made it as difficult as possible for people to watch the games.
In an internet age, they have made it as difficult as possible for people to watch the games.
This is a great point, and goes hand-in-hand with regional blackouts. I get how lucrative the TV deals are, but streaming offers them access to a bigger pie IMO, and a much, much younger audience. Comcast has really upped their app game but the NFL goes so far as to block streaming of live AND recorded games. My sling box gets me around this, but the NFL is dinosaur in the media delivery department. Maybe Direct TV's intention to get scale out to dishes (and into streaming only) will help them move, but I'd guess they'd find a way to screw that up too.
The old rule is that Star players make ratings. If only the league had one of the greatest players in the history of their sport to promote maybe the ratings would be better. Oh wait, they spent two years tearing that player down over something that didn't happen.
I'm pretty much in the same boat - moved out of Massachusetts and can't get DirectTV (not that I would) - I really don't have any options other than internet streams or a slingbox - which is totally ridiculous.
Slingbox isn't that ridiculous. It's a great product. I use my slingbox all the time for sports watching, if I'm in a place where I can't watch it on TV.
If you have it on your home, sure. But he'd have to install it on someone *else's* TV, and that's pretty ridiculous.
Yesterday was the first day that I realized that even though I pay for Sunday Ticket streaming...I *still* couldn't watch the Pats game because it's not based on home area, but wherever the game happens to be shown that week. Which is pretty fucking ludicrous, and goes to the point where they make it as hard as possible for someone to watch games. So even though I'm paying them like $60 a month, I still won't be able to watch something like 25% of the season. It's nuts.
NFL will be pissed as Sean for this: http://offthemonstersports.com/2016/10/mnf-announcer-sean-mcdonough-ripped-the-nfl-for-their-plummeting-ratings-during-last-night-broadcast/
Mostly Sean (and some Grude)n ripped the refs last night and said that too many flags may be contributing to lower ratings.
Mostly Sean (and some Grude)n ripped the refs last night and said that too many flags may be contributing to lower ratings.
I'm confused by what you're saying here. You can't watch a game when it's being shown on the local station where you are. Why can't you watch the local station?
Because I don't have cable.
Yes, I could get local channels if I had an antenna- and now I've gone out and purchased one- but the point is it lowers the value prop for Sunday Ticket streaming. You buy it, thinking that you're buying the ability to watch the season, when in reality you're buying some portion of the games of the season (on a sliding scale partially based on your team's popularity).
Yes, you can find that out if you read through the various blackout rules, but it fits into uncannymanny's point about the NFL making it really hard for people in the Internet age to buy their product. Basically, if you're a cord-cutter- even if you're out of the home market- you need a combination of a paid monthly service, HD antenna, Twitter, and likely something else (like sling.tv subscription) for other games. It's an insane patchwork scenario, and paying for Sunday Ticket is making less and less sense, and it's getting really hard to not just cancel and pirate those games.
They don't make it that hard to watch the game, it's not like they are buried on TruTV. You just don't subscribe to the product delivery system.
Yeah, it's always been an out-of-market product. The streaming isn't intended for cord-cutters, it's for people who are unable to get directv and want out-of-market games.
As a Dolphins fan living in NE and a cord cutter, I've bought the Sunday Ticket streaming package the last 3 or 4 seasons and enjoy their service. Then again, I'm basically their target demographic.
And that's why I bought it, as a NE fan on the west coast. Although, as I said, I'm realizing that I'm really paying that $200+ for something like half the games. And that value prop is a factor in future viewership.
And whether or not it's aimed at cord-cutters, this thread is about the NFL's declining viewership. And cable subscription rates continue to fall and that isn't changing anytime soon. I think it's certainly something they're going to have to address.
Edit: In general, "our product isn't for you" is a legitimate answer, but when that *you* is a growing number they can't really complain about fewer customers
But the thread is about NFL's declining viewership on TV, not streaming devices, which can only contribute to declining TV viewership. I don't hear them complaining about fewer Sunday Ticket subscribers, streaming or otherwise.
I should say, I have the streaming service as a Pats fan in LA, where not a single Pats day game has been broadcast locally this year. I have complaints about the service (choppy audio mostly), but not about the number of games it makes available.
I should say, I have the streaming service as a Pats fan in LA, where not a single Pats day game has been broadcast locally this year. I have complaints about the service (choppy audio mostly), but not about the number of games it makes available.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/10/19/roger-goodell-nfl-not-losing-viewers-but-some-are-watching-less/
Gosh, I wonder which group of viewers are watching less...
Gosh, I wonder which group of viewers are watching less...
Had the opportunity to discuss this issue with two C-level marketing executives. I expressed my opinion that the national anthem issue was a major driver, but they both thought it was oversaturation -- having NFL football on TV every Sunday, Monday and Thursday has made it seem as though it's on all the time, so people are less likely to make it appointment viewing.
Pigs get slaughtered. The NFL owned Sunday and Monday and they just had to have Thursday, too. This was doubly bad because these players need rest and the Thursday night games are terrible, in general. So it watered down the product and made it less attractive.
Maybe you missed the part where I *can't* get Sunday Ticket.
Well maybe the NFL can help me get some newspaper subscriptions and a land line too; they should have enough time soon. "It's always [been that way]" is one of the weakest arguments for anything and for a business, a sure way to get in a situation like this.
If they had numbers on those services RG would cite them (think about the numbers MLB would pull out from MLBAM if they were in this spot). But they don't have the subscriber numbers (because you can barely get it), so he said "less people are watching for whatever reason".
Your argument boils down to, "I rally want an iPhone but I don't want to pay a monthly contract to use it for texts and calls and data."
You can watch the NFL games if you subscribed to cable. You don't subscribe, so watching is more difficult. But that is a decision you made and it sucks, but it's your decision. The networks pay the NFL a massive amount of money to show the games. In turn, the cable companies pay the networks a massive amount of money to carry their networks on their systems.
But you want it for free. Because, what, it's 2016?