The NFL is becoming more disturbing than appealing, and TV viewers are tuning out

[tk13]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sport...b06_story.html

Excerpts:

The NFL is becoming more disturbing than appealing, and TV viewers are tuning out

By Sally Jenkins Columnist October 31

The NFL’s firm grip on the psyche is based in the fact that it’s the most real, live event on live television. Every game is a character-driven story and a high-speed chase in which the action and the stakes of a collision are genuine. But lately the NFL has seemed formulaic and lacking in a certain kind of authenticity. It’s no great mystery as to why the NFL’s ratings have been dropping: Viewers don’t especially like the stories they’re watching.

The numbers are striking. Through seven weeks, ratings were off for every prime-time incarnation of the NFL: “Sunday Night Football” by 19 percent, “Monday Night Football” by 24 percent and the dreaded Thursday night game by 18 percent. A variety of factors may be contributing to this dive, from the election to so-called “fragmentation” of mass media. But none of the explanations make as much sense as the simplest one: The NFL has put less appealing and more disturbing action on the screen, and viewers are turning it off.

Historian Michael Oriard has observed that the great attraction of the league is that it’s “the true reality TV,” in its most vital form. But the NFL is beginning to seem over-managed and over-staged. Constant commercials and interruptions by refs waving their arms do not produce “appointment viewing;” rather, they produce punts, ties and stasis. Look at the standings: A cluster of 18 teams, indistinguishable save for the colors of their shirts, are at .500 or worse and five more at 4-3. In other words, 23 teams are not must-see-TV to anyone but their most fervent fans. The constant advertisements and hail of yellow flags from overly officious officials make a PBS series seem fast-moving, with a clearer story line.

When rookie quarterback Dak Prescott led the Dallas Cowboys over the Philadelphia Eagles with his touchdown pass to Jason Witten in overtime late Sunday night, it was clear how much animation the league has been missing. But even that terrific game, which had high divisional stakes and featured a bright new star, was crushed in the ratings by Game 5 of the World Series between the Chicago Cubs and Cleveland Indians. It’s the first time since 2011 that a World Series game beat “Sunday Night Football.”

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Obviously, viewers are not finding the NFL as meaningful and important as they have in other seasons. Games on Sunday, Monday and Thursday, plus a handful of overseas trips for novelty games in London, have numbed the viewer. Only a handful of contests this past weekend felt like difference-makers, and those were disrupted by flags. One was between the New England Patriots and the Buffalo Bills, which was marred by five penalties in the first 10 minutes. When the Pats led 38-17 in the third quarter, where was the viewer to go? To Jets-Browns? Lions-Texans? Raiders-Buccaneers was close, but that meant suffering through a league-record 23 penalties against the Raiders for 200 yards.

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The NFL ratings malaise is being puzzled over by everyone from media executives to stock analysts, who offer a variety of speculative causes. Everything from fantasy football to Twitter live-streaming to the shorter attention spans and habits of millennials has been cited. But none of these entirely add up. Other sports aren’t suffering precipitous drops; NBA and Major League Baseball ratings have strengthened over the past year.

In looking for a difference, it’s hard to dismiss the coexisting facts that the NFL has ruined the flow of its on-field stories while experiencing a spate of deeply negative stories off the field — most of them self-inflicted and perpetuated, from the Deflategate four-game suspension of Tom Brady, to the spousal abuse case of place kicker Josh Brown. Donald Trump has blamed Colin Kaepernick for dissing the national anthem for the fall in ratings. If that’s a factor, then undoubtedly so are narratives involving concussions and domestic violence.

[DaneMcCloud]

One thing I forgot: Billionaire owners holding cities and municipalities hostage regarding stadiums.

Minnesota did it, Vegas is trying to do it, San Diego is attempting to do it, Atlanta did it and so on. There is absolutely no reason, other than greed, for billionaire owners of NFL teams to insist that local taxpayers fund $1 BILLION dollar + stadiums with the threat of leaving the city if there's no compliance.

It's ****ing maddening and ridiculous. **** the Spanos family and all the others.

[Chief Pagan]

I don't agree with the complaint about too many flags. If you stop calling the "ticky tacky" stuff, players will just try to get away with more until they do get flagged.

[Chief Pagan]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

One thing I forgot: Billionaire owners holding cities and municipalities hostage regarding stadiums.
...
It's ****ing maddening and ridiculous. **** the Spanos family and all the others.

I agree it is bad that cities subsidize billionaire owners. I don't think that has anything to do with the watchability of football or TV ratings.

[jjchieffan]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

The amount of commercials doesn't bother me. The pace of the game doesn't bother me.

What's turned me off this year (which began in 2014) is the hypocrisy of the League Office, especially when it comes to Domestic Violence. Ray Rice wasn't suspended until video footage emerged. Greg Hardy wasn't suspended, despite the fact he had a cache of weapons and beat up his girlfriend. A guy like Tyreek Hill isn't immediately put into a program and suspended to begin his career.

Then of course, there's Roger Goodell's smug ass, the stupid and baseless Deflate-gate, the over officiating of games while moving serious judgment calls to the League Office in NY, which has even more control over the outcome on the field than the refs in the stadium. The non-calls on Alex Smith and Cam Newton and other QB's. Phantom penalties on kick off and punt returns. Absolutely ridiculous PI penalties.

The league has become boring, stagnant and predicutable. When Jeff Fisher is the coach of a team in the #2 market in the US, while having only 6 winning seasons out of 21 (heading for 22), it's clear that it's a "Good Ol' Boys" network. There's no offensive innovation, despite the fact the game is heavily slanted towards the offense in terms of rules and penalties.

There's too many worthless head coaches (Gus Bradley? Fisher? Marvin Lewis? CRAP!). The players aren't allowed to celebrate. The officiating ****ing sucks. Marcus Peters receives a 15 yard Unsportsmanlike penalty for waving his finger, yet I see it time and time again, across the league, and no one's been penalized.

As much as I loved talking about the game, it's just not the same anymore. The Prime Time matchups are awful, as are Sunday Night and Thursday Night games, not to mention London, possible games in Mexico and China along with Saturday games in December.

There's too much over-exposure as well, be it ESPN, Fox and the NFL Network's daily and 'round the clock coverage. Too many players featured in TV commercials.

There's no "mystique" any more.

I'll continue to watch the Chiefs each time they're on the air but as for the rest of the league, I'm just not interested.

Why should they suspend someone for something that happened long before he was drafted? In what world does and employer hire someone, full well knowing about their past, then immediately suspend them for those actions??? That's just asinine.

[Amnorix]

Somewhat relatedly, ESPN is dying. Ratings down isn't the real issue. The real issue is cable subscriptions are waaay down, and their commitments to the major sports leagues is insanely high.

[Rain Man]

For me, the dropoff happened once they started running the league like a business instead of like a sports league. It became apparent that they care more about revenues than about producing an entertaining product that's competitive. The Peyton Manning farewell tour, the stupid Super Bowl contest that clearly was just a marketing ploy, and all of the other stuff like that greatly damaged the credibility of the league. I used to watch football whenever it was on, and I would make a special effort to ALWAYS watch the Chiefs. Now I'll watch the Chiefs only for the most part, but if I'm traveling or something I won't change my plans to be available for the game. It makes me kind of sad since the NFL was part of my life for so long, but it's just not the same now that it's just a big corporation.

[Rain Man]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

One thing I forgot: Billionaire owners holding cities and municipalities hostage regarding stadiums.

Minnesota did it, Vegas is trying to do it, San Diego is attempting to do it, Atlanta did it and so on. There is absolutely no reason, other than greed, for billionaire owners of NFL teams to insist that local taxpayers fund $1 BILLION dollar + stadiums with the threat of leaving the city if there's no compliance.

It's ****ing maddening and ridiculous. **** the Spanos family and all the others.

Yeah, this too.

[GoChargers]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

One thing I forgot: Billionaire owners holding cities and municipalities hostage regarding stadiums.

Minnesota did it, Vegas is trying to do it, San Diego is attempting to do it, Atlanta did it and so on. There is absolutely no reason, other than greed, for billionaire owners of NFL teams to insist that local taxpayers fund $1 BILLION dollar + stadiums with the threat of leaving the city if there's no compliance.

It's ****ing maddening and ridiculous. **** the Spanos family and all the others.

You're right, but this isn't exclusive to the NFL. It's all pro sports.

With that said, the Giants built a privately-funded ballpark. The Warriors are building a privately-funded arena. The Clippers are looking into building a privately-funded arena. MLS teams have been privately funding their new stadiums for years.

There's no excuse anymore for pro sports owners to try to shake their cities down, because we've all seen that stadiums can be built without scamming the taxpayer. The standard should be that if you can't afford to build a stadium with your own money, you can't afford to build a pro sports team.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by jjchieffan

Why should they suspend someone for something that happened long before he was drafted? In what world does and employer hire someone, full well knowing about their past, then immediately suspend them for those actions??? That's just asinine.

Because Domestic Violence is a serious issue in this country and NFL should take a hard line stance against ANY of its players, veteran or rookie, that have been arrested for such a heinous crime.

It's a privilege to play in the NFL, not a right.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by Chief Pagan

So all of you guys whining about what's a catch...

Do you want to get rid of instant replay? It used to be the ref would make a split second call on the field and that was it. If the calls were inconsistent, there was no way of telling whether it was because refs had a different idea of what exactly a catch was, or if they just didn't see it correctly in real time.

Now if you have 100 potential catches reviewed, you have to draw some (arbitrary line) and say, for instance, these 50 are catches, but these 50 are not. When a borderline call goes against a homer, homer going to scream (nothing new there).

I like the replay. I think a lot of times they could do it more quickly. I would like to see them experiment with doing it centrally, offsite. I think it could be done more quickly and more uniformly.

I would 100% be fine with doing away with instant replay at this point, yes. It's pretty clear that having instant replay doesn't mean we'll have correct calls every time.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by Chief Pagan

I don't agree with the complaint about too many flags. If you stop calling the "ticky tacky" stuff, players will just try to get away with more until they do get flagged.

Or perhaps we actually let players play the game rather than trying to manipulate the relative power of offenses and defenses through arbitrary rules.

[tomahawk kid]

Originally Posted by O.city

First, they've gotta make the refs full-time employees. Increase practice time so the product isn't shit.

Honestly, I'd do away with instant replay. Just play it with the eye test.

THIS.

[jjchieffan]

Originally Posted by DaneMcCloud

Because Domestic Violence is a serious issue in this country and NFL should take a hard line stance against ANY of its players, veteran or rookie, that have been arrested for such a heinous crime.

It's a privilege to play in the NFL, not a right.

I have no problem with the NFL taking a hard stance against players who commit domestic violence crimes once they are a part of the league. But you just can't punish someone for something that happened and was completely dealt with long before he joined the league. The NFL does not and should not have authority in that circumstance.

[Nzoner]

Originally Posted by Swanman

One thing that is killing my interest is it sure seems like the number of injuries have skyrocketed in the last several years. Fantasy football is one thing keeping interest high in the NFL but I can see that waning as well since half of your fantasy football team is on IR by week 6. Christ, we even have long injury lists for the opening week of the season, I don't remember that being a thing until very recently.

IMO the players need to get back to two-a-days in pads and toughen their ass up.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by GoChargers

They let Bob Kraft and the Rooneys hand-pick the commissioner that every team has to operate under. They slapped the Patriots on the wrist for cheating twice, even going out of their way to destroy evidence. They've rewritten the rules of the game to favor a handful of marketable glory-boy quarterbacks, and they allow those quarterbacks' teams to get away with anything. They've allowed franchises to rot for decades under horrible owners like Mike Brown, Dan Snyder, Bob McNair, the Spanoses, and the Fords. They sell us on the idea of "parity," then give us a product where it's the Patriots, Broncos, Steelers, Colts, Packers, Cowboys, [insert NFC upstart here] and everyone else, year after year after year. And now they wonder why people are tuning out?

If you're not a fan of a select handful of good-ole'-boy teams, it's almost pointless to even care about this league anymore. The games are no longer won on the field. They're won in the league office, on the committees that lobby Goodell for changes every offseason, and in the owner's box. If you don't have an owner with clout around the league, your team might as well just forfeit the season.

The NBA had a major PR crisis back in the early 2000s because of their boring product, their players' atrocious behavior on and off the court, questionable officiating and the lack of parity in the league. To their credit, they listened to the critics and made changes. It's a whole new league now, with exciting games almost every night and former perennial losers like the Cavs, Clippers and Warriors getting their acts together and competing. Now it's the NFL's turn to face the music.

Can you say "rub route" (if it's one of the chosen teams)? Oh, and, "you just have to learn how to run it." Right...