The NFL Is Seriously Concerned With Empty Stadiums
 

The NFL Is Seriously Concerned With Empty Stadiums

By: Ryan Phillips | September 13, 2017


Week 1 of the NFL season had plenty of important stories worth following, but maybe the most entertaining was the mostly empty stadiums in Los Angeles and Santa Clara. Both the Los Angeles Rams and San Francisco 49ers had sparse crowds for their home openers, and that has not gone unnoticed by the NFL.


Ian Rapoport ✔ @RapSheet
NFL spokesman Joe Lockhart on the attendance in LA & SF: “Any time we empty seats that something we want to address.” Focused on sellouts.
10:29 AM - Sep 13, 2017


Ian Rapoport’s report (try and say that fast five times) above shows that the league is clearly worried about the optics of half-filled stadiums. And they should be. It’s embarrassing for the league.

This is what the 49ers crowd looked like at the start of the second half in Week 1:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DJZRldwVoAAsYsx.jpg

And here’s what the Rams crowd looked like in the first quarter:

https://www.ballerstatus.com/wp-cont...ms-780x520.jpg

Here’s the thing, the NFL’s plans for relocating teams have been hilariously ham-fisted. Moving the 49ers to Santa Clara, 45 minutes from San Francisco was a moronic decision. Levi’s Stadium is also positioned so roughly 70 percent of the stadium bakes in the sun with no chance of shade.

Meanwhile, the Rams might actually have decent attendance once they move into their new stadium, but that’s a huge gamble. Until then, they’ll likely be dealing with sparse crowds at the Coliseum for the next three seasons. It’s terrible optics for the NFL to have empty stadiums and absolutely no atmosphere for games.

And we haven’t even gotten to the Los Angeles Chargers, who haven’t even been able to sellout a 27,000-seat stadium. No one wanted the Chargers in Los Angeles, and it has shown so far. Dean Spanos and his family have consistently claimed they are pleased with ticket sales and “excited” about what’s happened with the franchise in LA, but look at the following picture for the team’s first ever official game in Los Angeles:

https://usatthebiglead.files.wordpre...rs-tickets.png

That was taken just before publishing this piece. Everything in color there is a ticket on sale for the team’s Week 2 matchup with the Miami Dolphins. Many of them are “re-sale” tickets that were likely snagged up by brokers when season tickets went on sale. Those brokers will likely aim to sell those seats to opposing fans all season. That graphic is stunning because it comes from just one ticket selling website, and there are several others that each have hundreds of tickets available.

The fact that the Chargers can’t find 27,000 fans to fill their tiny soccer stadium home for their opener in a new city would be shocking if you hadn’t followed this move from the beginning. But, let’s be real: there is zero buzz around the team, fan outreach efforts have been widely mocked and San Diego fans have abandoned the franchise en masse after the way the team’s ownership treated its former city. No matter how much lipstick the NFL tries to put on that situation, it’s always going to look like a pig.

Empty stadiums are a huge deal to the NFL. Yes, the league makes its money off of TV contracts, but when fans aren’t at games it has a detrimental impact on the product. It sends the message that games are boring, uninteresting and that people don’t want to have anything to do with them in person. That kind of message hurts the product as a whole.

Not to mention, players don’t want to play in empty stadiums, so those franchises will suffer when it comes time to lure free agents. That could lead to some teams being buried at the bottom of the league year after year and creating a cycle that leaves fans even less incentive to show up.

This is a major problem for the NFL. Maybe owners around the league will finally realize that their big, bold stadium and relocation plans should actually have more thought attached to them.


http://thebiglead.com/2017/09/13/the...mpty-stadiums/

Ham fisted

No one is in the Santa Clara stadium because it's hot as **** there. The reflection off of the luxury boxes heats up the peasant seats like an oven. Also both teams kind of suck (Rams less so) and tickets are expensive as hell.

Shouldn't this be titled:

The NFL is seriously concerned with empty stadiums in California?

It helps attendance if the team in question doesn't suck out loud.

The ratings for week one are out. While Irma certainly had an impact on the overall numbers, the NFL should be worried about viewership in general.

I think the worst thing that the NFL did was ever acknowledging any political BS. Think that brought a sour note to the NFL and is also pushing a significant amount of people (mainly SJW millennial/college age types) away from the NFL.

Other options and over regulation of the game have left viewers disillusioned.

They did it to themselves with all the BS rule changes and keeping the wildly unpopular Goodell as the commissioner. The arbitrary fines and suspensions also are making this league worse IMO. Kaepernick hasn't helped things either.

It is the snowball effect. Even Mark Cuban predicted this.

I think the biggest problem is just prices.

Arrowhead would pack every game if they cut parking 2/3rds and lowered ticket prices 15%.

Of course, that would cost the teams money, which is what this is really about.

The NFL isn't concerned about empty stadiums, they're concerned about money. If they wanted to pack stadiums, it would be insanely easy.

I'd like to know how they formulate numbers on viewership. Is it a Nielsen type thing where they check in on who and how many people are watching a live event on their on TVs, and do they account for viewers that stream or DVR games to watch at a later date?

I also wonder what the impact is of all those companies moving their HQ's out of California the last decade. So many have moved to Texas and brought many well paid people with them. Sure, it might be a stretch... but, could it be a factor?

Those teams have all sucked for quite some time and I'm sure prices have gone up and it's stupid expensive to live in California.

Idk man.. Golden State Warriors are always selling out but like you said 49ers and Rams suck.

It's prob time for Goodell to bash Trump pulblicly, like he did adter the election. That's good for business, taking political stands as a CEO. Viewers love that!




On second thought, he can burn in hell.

The article mainly concerns itself with California teams that have little or no fan support (redundant, I know), and all three of those mentioned have recently relocated.

However, across the league I think the main problems are that the NFL has decided to price regular people out of the market, and that the quality of the product has declined.

Rule changes making the league so QB-centric... 4 or 5 teams realistically have a chance. You can't hit anyone, you can't defend anyone, nobody knows what a catch is any longer. Defense and the ground game are sideshows the passing game. Arena football isn't popular and this mess the NFL is declining toward isn't either. Bring back the run game, bring back defense, bring back what was once the most "team" of all team sports.

Then maybe people will consider paying exorbitant sums for parking spaces, tickets, and everything that goes with them.