"Is This the End of the NFL?"

[Cowtown]

Interesting read:

"Television ratings have been down for the past several years, with this year’s down 5.7 percent. Why? Part of it is just the shrinking of all TV audiences — broadcasters once thought that live sports were one thing people would continue to tune in for in an age of streaming and cord cutting, but that doesn’t mean sports are immune."

"The larger problem is that the NFL, like many empires before it, got too large, too cocky, and too ambitious, and it overreached."​

True enough, not too much news there, but this was what really caught my attention:

"Compounding the problem — and the frustrations of NFL owners — has been the ascendancy of the NBA. Whereas the NFL felt like the sport that best fit the cultural spirit of the past decades of American life, it’s the NBA that reflects the future. All at once, the NBA has one of its greatest-ever teams (the Golden State Warriors), led by an inner-sanctum future Hall of Famer (Kevin Durant) and the league’s most beloved player (Stephen Curry); it has perhaps the best player since Michael Jordan (LeBron James), who also happens to be one of the most vital, globalist brand-called-me icons of our time; and it has a freewheeling, deeply pleasant style of play that is both an evolution of decades of on-court style and irresistible to watch. Perhaps more important, it has actively embraced the personalities, and the power, of its players, from the goofy man-child Twitter giddiness of 76ers star Joel Embiid to the Euro-charm of the Knicks’ own Kristaps Porzingis to an unprecedented spate of political activism culminating in the still-surreal spectacle of LeBron calling President Trump “U bum” on Twitter (which actually shut Trump up; he hasn’t talked about the NBA since). The NBA is vibrant and organic and alive; the NFL feels both toxic and bathed in amber. The league won’t even let the players take their helmets off to celebrate; how much could we possibly be expected to care about these people?"​

And I loved this line: "(which actually shut Trump up; he hasn’t talked about the NBA since)"

:rolling:

Is This the End of the NFL?

 

[Forza Azzurri]

Interesting read:

"Television ratings have been down for the past several years, with this year’s down 5.7 percent. Why? Part of it is just the shrinking of all TV audiences — broadcasters once thought that live sports were one thing people would continue to tune in for in an age of streaming and cord cutting, but that doesn’t mean sports are immune."

"The larger problem is that the NFL, like many empires before it, got too large, too cocky, and too ambitious, and it overreached."​

True enough, not too much news there, but this was what really caught my attention:

"Compounding the problem — and the frustrations of NFL owners — has been the ascendancy of the NBA. Whereas the NFL felt like the sport that best fit the cultural spirit of the past decades of American life, it’s the NBA that reflects the future. All at once, the NBA has one of its greatest-ever teams (the Golden State Warriors), led by an inner-sanctum future Hall of Famer (Kevin Durant) and the league’s most beloved player (Stephen Curry); it has perhaps the best player since Michael Jordan (LeBron James), who also happens to be one of the most vital, globalist brand-called-me icons of our time; and it has a freewheeling, deeply pleasant style of play that is both an evolution of decades of on-court style and irresistible to watch. Perhaps more important, it has actively embraced the personalities, and the power, of its players, from the goofy man-child Twitter giddiness of 76ers star Joel Embiid to the Euro-charm of the Knicks’ own Kristaps Porzingis to an unprecedented spate of political activism culminating in the still-surreal spectacle of LeBron calling President Trump “U bum” on Twitter (which actually shut Trump up; he hasn’t talked about the NBA since). The NBA is vibrant and organic and alive; the NFL feels both toxic and bathed in amber. The league won’t even let the players take their helmets off to celebrate; how much could we possibly be expected to care about these people?"​

And I loved this line: "(which actually shut Trump up; he hasn’t talked about the NBA since)"

:rolling:

Is This the End of the NFL?

My son and his buds all love the NBA...all my son wants to do is go to Knicks games which is the worst of all worlds...they are awful and the ticket prices at the Garden are astronomical...

NFL is basically red zone only for them and is all about fantasy, not the games themselves...

 

[NateW]

Now listen, I LOVE the NFL but I can understand why people don’t want to have it as the centerpiece of their Sundays anymore.

QB play is abysmal
Too many injuries to stars
Too many penalties and stoppages
Special teams is dead

Many more but those are my main grievances.

 

[KaiserUEO]

Now listen, I LOVE the NFL but I can understand why people don’t want to have it as the centerpiece of their Sundays anymore.

QB play is abysmal
Too many injuries to stars
Too many penalties and stoppages
Special teams is dead

Many more but those are my main grievances.

The way teams treat their absolute Fluckin legends who are also future HOFers...also comes to mind...

 

[NateW]

The way teams treat their absolute Fluckin legends who are also future HOFers...also comes to mind...

You’re trying to tell me that on a down year Parcells never said straight-faced that he had a better shot to win a game by benching Phil Simms for Dave Brown?

McAdoo should have been fired after the Rams game btw

 

[OttoinGrotto]

Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they're getting hoggy.

Mark Cuban

 

[Bayside44]

Wrong day to ask that question.

 

[IthacaMatt]

The NFL lost me probably 10 years ago. Too many games that go on for too long. The move to Sunday night games, and then Thursday night games - and the massive amount of roster turnover - left me unable to follow teams as closely as you would like in order to really be a knowledgeable fan. Nobody has that much time to devote to just one thing, at least not if you have a family or any other interests.

College basketball's declining quality of play, conference expansion watering down how frequently teams play each other, and the proliferation of so many kids who clearly are not yet NBA worthy leaving early has also made it harder to follow college hoops. Then mix in the amount of grabbing, pushing, etc. allowed on defense, which was terrible before some recent tweaks to how they call fouls the last couple years, has likewise left me only watching Cuse games, and not much else.

Now, my sports sink-hole of time goes into the Premier League, who still has every team play home-and-home over the course of the season, and the Champions Leauge, which gives you the biggest stars on the planet, playing the beautiful game. No time-outs. No commercial breaks. Playing in nasty weather, with players wearing down from 45 minutes of non-stop action, so that the goals flow at the end of each half.

Soccer is like a prize fight, where you feel and see momentum swings and teams wear each other down with pressure. People complain about the lack of scoring, but the average last year was 3 goals per game in the Premier League, and probably a dozen chances created per game.

People who find the sport boring don't recognize that the defenses are a lot like a mix between basketball and lacrosse, with the use of both zones and man-to-man coverage, depending on the situation and location on the field. The precision of the passing without using your hands is pretty amazing, when you think about it, with many players completing 80-90% of their passes, including 70 yard diagonal balls across the field, in a game when you are under near-constant pressure.

It's a physical game, with lots of borderline dirty play that really takes a toll on the players, a lot like playing against the old Detroit "Bad Boy" Pistons when they had Bill Laimbeer. And they don't wear body armor, like they do in the NFL. I find it to be a hell of a lot more enjoyable than most US sports that revolve around television commercials constantly interrupting the action. Forty-five minutes per half, running time. The game is over in less than 2 hours. And then you can get back to your life. I love it.

 

[MSOrange]

Now listen, I LOVE the NFL but I can understand why people don’t want to have it as the centerpiece of their Sundays anymore.

QB play is abysmal
Too many injuries to stars
Too many penalties and stoppages
Special teams is dead

Many more but those are my main grievances.

Good point about the injuries to stars. It will be really interesting if they expand to an 18 game regular season - all about player safety of course

 

[CuseFaninVT]

I certainly hope it's not done. Best way to get my Sunday naps in... Puts me right out.

 

[DeGrozz]

My son and his buds all love the NBA...all my son wants to do is go to Knicks games which is the worst of all worlds...they are awful and the ticket prices at the Garden are astronomical...

NFL is basically red zone only for them and is all about fantasy, not the games themselves...

It's amazing -- my wife's students at PS ### in NYC and the kids in our white bread suburb are all crazy about the Knicks. My wife will often make a comment about how interesting it is hearing kids on the opposite ends of the NY Metro spectrum sound so similar when talking about the Knicks. It also sounds like the second most talked about sport it soccer.

We've gone from a nation obsessed with boxing to baseball to football over the last 100 years. We might be making our next move over the next few decades.

 

[MikeSU02]

The NBA has the best athletes. It has the most accessible athletes. It markets those athletes better than any other league. It allows them to have strong social POVs (even if not everyone agrees with them).

The NFL is a huge time commitment and has all sorts of skeletons coming out of its closet. It doesn't evolve as a sport, quickly. It pretends things are fine.

Also, it's reluctant to release its content, where the NBA promotes all the little bites of content that appeals to a younger audience. Bron just had a sick dunk? Everyone will have access to it in minutes.

 

[OrangeDW]

Now listen, I LOVE the NFL but I can understand why people don’t want to have it as the centerpiece of their Sundays anymore.

QB play is abysmal
Too many injuries to stars
Too many penalties and stoppages
Special teams is dead

Many more but those are my main grievances.

That’s a good point on special teams. Nothing ever happens there anymore. The games can be stale and boring IMO.

 

[Orangeman]

NBA games are on TV...I mean the games I want to watch, and THEN, if I'm not in my local area, I can call up my CABLE PROVIDER, pay them a monthly fee and get all the games on channel 228 or whatever.

With the NFL, I have to add another PROVIDER in DirecTV and get the NFL package just to watch their pre-arranged nonsense. Not doing it anymore. Why did they do that? Because they're greedy and wanted every last dollar, which DirecTV was willing to pay them because it makes their business work, but it's not good for the NFL's customers, and that mind-set is slowly becoming their undoing.

 

[IthacaMatt]

NBA games are on TV...I mean the games I want to watch, and THEN, if I'm not in my local area, I can call up my CABLE PROVIDER, pay them a monthly fee and get all the games on channel 228 or whatever.

With the NFL, I have to add another PROVIDER in DirecTV and get the NFL package just to watch their pre-arranged nonsense. Not doing it anymore. Why did they do that? Because they're greedy and wanted every last dollar, which DirecTV was willing to pay them because it makes their business work, but it's not good for the NFL's customers, and that mind-set is slowly becoming their undoing.

Great observation. Sports can't be so arrogant that they make it so hard for customers to buy their product.

 

[DeGrozz]

Lots of nice points on the NBA -- there's one thing more to add. The NBA is at a HUGE advantage over the NFL in that it is a global brand. Europe and Asia have significantly more interest in the NBA than the NFL (or any other American sport). There's a ton of money flowing into the league and its sponsors because of that foreign interest -- it was Stern's greatest accomplishment and probably the reason that he is, in my mind, the greatest commissioner in the history of sports.