We consume things differently than we did 5 years ago... 10 years ago.

Streaming games, via DTV (or other) on your mobile devices at a rate not deemed insane is what people want.

We have 10,000 things screaming for our attention on game day - if I'm stuck watching 2 games with teams I don't like, then I'm not watching. That's a lot of the problem.

Nobody wants to invest time into a product when their team is screwed. The injuries are taking a big hit to the league.

Guaranteed we'll see a dip from Packers fans bc Rodgers is done and Houston will follow suit shortly.

Most of the games suck these days.

Unless you have Sunday ticket. Most of the games they show you locally are of zero interest to most folks.


Do I really care about nyg and Tampa bay playing when Denver , Oakland or SD is playing at the same time? Nope.

Therefore find other things to do.

Perhaps we are sick of the cowboys and giants being forced down our ****ing throats every week. Seriously i stream most of my games through internet websites that dont contribute to ratings. Its a shame they keep contracting with directv for the ticket. I will not pay Directv $200 a month so i can watch football.


I have seen the other side.
The side that lets you pick which game to watch.
And i will continue to use that side.
Until that side decides to part.

https://i.imgur.com/nhr7bou.gif

As far as the Thurs night games go, it'd be a lot easier to watch if I didn't have to chase down an official stream every time.
Pick a company and stick with it!
Let's just stop with switching the stream providers, please.

I’ve been saying this for months.

Regardless of whether or not the ratings are down (streaming isn’t included in the Nielsen ratings), there is no other program that can consistently garner 20 million+ viewers per episode like NFL games.

I wonder what the Super Bowl is going to feel like this year. So many of the league's best players recently retired, injured, suspended, declining, etc. There are no great teams out there. I wonder if there won't be some weird matchup that everybody knows should never have happened.

I also think they need to get around the silly rules on Sunday regarding games being divided up between networks by conference and some networks getting two games while others only get one. Let the local stations decide which games to air. They could even poll fans on which 'other games' they want to see this week.

For me it comes down to a lot of the things already mentioned.

• Oversaturation - MNF used to be special, thanksgiving games used to be what you sat down on the couch in a half turkey coma to watch. Now they've added a 3rd game, there is a Thursday game, there is London. I don't have time for all of this and the primetime games have lost their meaning.
• The Officiating / Rules - I get tired of games being called differently based on who is playing. Oh this team just plays physical defense the whole game so we aren't gonna call any hits to the head on them. We also don't know what a catch is. DPI is game changing and when teams can pretty much get away with any OPI they want and get DPI calls on half of them it gets unwatchable.
• The Protests / Reaction - I don't really care about the protests. I figure if someone wants to use that to make their statement that's fine. The fact that nobody talks about what the players are actually protesting and instead wants to debate whether it's disrespectful every single game is just wearing me out.
• Inconsistent Penalties - Fines/Suspensions handed down by the front office are very inconsistent. The league wants to appear tough on domestic violence so it goes after Zeke when it looks like the allegations might have been false but completely ignores other players. Intentionally dive at a QB's knees that's a fine, make contact against a defenseless receiver that was probably not intentional, that's a suspension.

Cord cutters don't show up in the ratings system, doesn't mean they aren't watching. They need to change the way the ratings numbers are gathered.

This reminds me of how the Raiders literally wore down the referees with all their OPI during the Chiefs game. The Raiders knew if they just did it every play that eventually the refs would give up on the call or they'd just wait until it was extremely blatant to call it. The Crabtree TD at the very end was exactly the same as the Austin Seferian-Jenkins TD in last nights game, except it was called OPI in the Jets game. When referees control a game based on their subjective flags, it ruins the game.

Do people actually watch games on their phones? I pads? Laptops?

I am to the point where I am thinking about replacing the 12 year old 50 inch Tv, wanting a bigger one.

I've never understood how ratings work anyway. How can they accurately know how many people are truly watching a certain game? Or even make a ballpark estimation?

Welcome to the digital age.

Working in advertising, I know that TV viewership is down across the board. It's not just the NFL. Advertisers aren't willing to shell out the cash on big TV campaigns like they were 5 or 6 years ago...it's a dying medium.

The fact that the NFL continues to be perplexed by their declining ratings is comical to me. The funny part is that, while fewer people are probably watching football today than 5 or 6 years ago...it's not as drastic as the ratings may show. I don't watch games on TV. I stream them, and so do millions of others on a weekly basis. I don't even HAVE cable anymore.

Until they figure out how to start accounting for streaming, they'll never truly know what their viewership numbers are. And even then, figuring out how to advertise to a streaming audience that isn't paying attention, uses ad blockers, etc. is an entirely different issue.

Yes