So why the ratings plunge?

[NOLAHawk]

luckily I bought the illegal download stick to watch my seahawks but would be nice to just flip to any sports channel and watch whatever game you feel like.

Admitting to a felony online is not an anonymous act.

Remember those NFL jerks went after The Who dat slogan in 2011. Greedy.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[hedgehawk]

Personally, I'm just losing interest in the non-Seahawks games. I haven't watched a single Sunday, Monday, or Thursday Night game this season.

Yep, me too. I haven't watched a single game this year other than the Seahawk games. I just have more important and better things to do. Yesterday at 10:00 when games were starting, I was at an indoor play center for kids letting my kiddo run around and have fun. Got back for the Seahawk game and watched. Afterwards, my family went to the park because it wasn't raining and then out to dinner. I didn't even know who was playing Sunday night and didn't care. Just losing interest overall in the NFL product. My friends and family have expressed similar feelings.

 

[KitsapGuy]

Anyone else notice something odd watching the start of Sunday’s game between the Atlanta Falcons and Seattle Seahawks?

A distinct lack of commercials.

FOX did not take its first break until 2:02 left in the first quarter, and that only came while a play was being reviewed by the officials.

Normally if one team goes on a long drive to open the game, the network will go to a break right after that. If the first drive is quick, the other team will run its first series and then we go to a commercial.

But that didn’t happen. Seattle and Atlanta both ran two series before the first ad popped onto your screen.

It was 12:58 of game time, but 25 minutes in the real world without a commercial. That’s blasphemy in this era of broadcasting.

There was no official word from the NFL Sunday night as to why, but here’s an educated guess – ratings. It’s been no secret the NFL has seen sagging numbers this season. Viewership has been down in virtually every time slot.

Out of 32 total broadcast windows between Week 1 and Week 5, only seven saw viewership up over last year. All the others have been down, according to Sports Media Watch. Numbers for Week 6 weren’t available Sunday.

Several factors that have been speculated

- Games being streamed on mobile devices, which aren’t accounted for in the Nielsen ratings

- Boycotts over the national anthem protests that started with Colin Kaepernick

- Diluted product: The NFL is now on three days a week

- Or, perhaps, people are just not as interested in football anymore.

So what happened with Sunday’s Seahawks-Falcons game may be the league and the network experimenting to see if they can get those numbers up. Hold your audience for a long period at the start and maybe they’ll stay.

http://www.king5.com/sports/nfl/seahawk ... /336651542

 

[hawk45]

Colts - Texans, good lord. I turned the game on for one series to confirm neither QB was worth watching then snapped it off.

 

[2_0_6]

Making it a requirement for every team to be on TNF ensures that most of the games will be absolute turds.

 

[hawk45]

It's actually crazy folks tuned in for the TNF crap fests as long as they did.
Tonight's game is the first MNF I've had on and it's only because of the divisional implications it certainly isn't the matchup.

 

[Fade]

There is a long list of reason's why, but I would like to just focus on one.

Too many flags.

Which has been caused by the wussification of the league under the guise of player safety. When it's the NFL just trying to protect themselves from lawsuits.

The game is now basketball on grass. With any kind of physicality being removed from the sport through rule changes. Which leads to more flags.

The Refs now get more camera time than the players do.

Right now I'm loving how the plays under review are now just staying with the call on the field most of the time. So the NFL is tacitly admitting they are wasting everybody's time.


3 simple steps to fix the pacing of the game, when it comes to officiating for a more enjoyable viewing experience.

STEP 1: Pair down the rule book. Refs have too much on their plate, and is a big reason refereeing seemingly is getting worse, because the NFL keeps giving them more, and more rules to officiate every year.

STEP 2: Only throw the flag if it affected the play. Too many ticky tack crap calls. I don't want to watch the NBA, I want to watch football. Players are now flopping to get calls, pathetic. 10 years ago that wasn't the case.

STEP 3: Remove the current replay rules, too many reviews, and it slows the game down. Each team gets 1 challenge. They can challenge anything they want nothing would be not review-able. If they are successful they are granted 1 more challenge. Currently with 2 challenges, coaches waste 1 on frivolous plays because they know they have another challenge in their back pocket.

 

[RedAlice]

My personal opinion: it's the Refs. Making the game pretty much unwatchable.

Plus yes, streaming. And I don't mean how to stream the game. I mean, I have no clue what day any TV show is on. I use only streaming. So, when I feel like watching TV, I look at my device and see what the shows are I like that have new episodes. I have zero clue when they are on live time. This is normal behavior now.

Most people don't know what is happening in live time.

Us NFL nerds know when to watch NFL games, others do not and don't care.

 

[RiverDog]

Last night's MNF game was torturous to watch, with all the penalties. Some of those PI/holding calls were absurd. I can imagine a person with a limited understanding of NFL football turning it over to the baseball game.

Which brings up another point: These constant rule changes makes the game confusing for the novice. Baseball's and basketball's rules hardly ever change.

 

[pmedic920]

Colts - Texans, good lord. I turned the game on for one series to confirm neither QB was worth watching then snapped it off.

I "get it" but it's really a matter of prospective.

For me, I have a minor interest in the Texans (local team). I also love to hate Luck.
I do like football in general so for me, this was a very watchable game, and as L80 said above, it turned out to be a decent game.


I guess over all I'm kind of spoiled because I've had SundayTicket ever since it became available. I've been a Seahawk fan since day one, and lived out of market since "87"

Without ST, I'd probably have a different opinion, being able to watch whatever game you have the most interest in, changes things a bit.

 

[Happy]

I think it can be partly attributed to the Kapernick thing.

For many Football is a break from the daily grind. It's entertainment. When the things that people are looking to get a few hours of respite from show up in the game, it's a turnoff, particularly for casual fans.

 

[SeAhAwKeR4life]

I know many will groan and moan in dismay, but I think what the NFL is sorely lacking these days are personalities like we saw with Oucho Cinco, and Terrell Owens. Not some crybaby showboat like Cammie Newton, but s*** talkin' crazy talent guys who light it up on the field and off.

 

[mistaowen]

Mark Cuban called this back in 2014. Described how the NFL is oversaturating us with a good product while they expanded primetime games. A lot of the higher ups laughed at this cause they felt he was just jealous the NBA wasn't as much of a juggernaut.

"Just watch,” Cuban said in a March 2014 conversation with reporters. “Pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I’m just telling you, when you’ve got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That’s rule No. 1 of business."

Thursday night games almost always are blow outs, generally with bad teams, due to shorter weeks to prepare/rest. This obsession with getting the NFL popular in London (with bottom dwellers) and having early morning games doesn't help. I think I've tuned into one of these and it was just because yahoo was streaming it for free when I went to update my fantasy team.

Awful refs, long reviews, and ever increasing commercials also plague the game. Flag happy, no contact games are unbearable.

There are also about 4 consistently good teams while everyone else gets lumped together in varying levels of 'average to bad.' Parity isn't a good thing if it's only with the bottom 2/3 of the league. NFC East, AFC South, NFC South have all been generally a grab bag of who will be lucky enough to win 9 games. No other team has sniffed the AFC East lead in a decade.

 

[StoneCold]

I'm going to put in another vote for too many penalties. And it's not just on the refs, the players are the ones committing the violations. I doubt anything can be done about this as they are coached to push the edge of what's allowed. But after watching last nights Ariz, Jets game it was ridiculous. Flag almost every play. Something needs to be done.

 

[Smelly McUgly]

• - Games are worse due to practices having less hitting and too many short-week games.
  - Oversaturated product.
  - Football fans are awful in general and drive me away from the game. It's hard to root for a team when you know that some terrible people somewhere will be happy if they win.
  - Commissioner concerned with two things: Bilking cities out of stadium money and sucking joy out of the game to make it as sterile and corporate as possible.

I watch Seahawk games, but I barely watch any other football. The league is terrible.

There are also about 4 consistently good teams while everyone else gets lumped together in varying levels of 'average to bad.' Parity isn't a good thing if it's only with the bottom 2/3 of the league. NFC East, AFC South, NFC South have all been generally a grab bag of who will be lucky enough to win 9 games. No other team has sniffed the AFC East lead in a decade.

I don't think this matters. The NBA basically has about four teams that can win it all every year and it's almost impossible to become one of those teams unless you tank for multiple years and hit on all your lottery picks, but it's more popular than it's been since the Jordan's Bulls days of the early-to-mid '90s.

 

[chris98251]

It's league pussification, the No Fun League, no celebrations, Penalties left and right, rarely any momentum in games anymore leagues to commercials and breaks in focus and interest of not just the players but the audience, when you have 3 to 6 minutes of time for a penalty to be cleared up people start channel surfing. The Officiating has kept getting worse as well, more blown calls when they do throw a flag.

Why do you watch Cable programs over Network TV, lack of commercials and more enjoyable experience with the story, not that different with Football at it's present state.

Even our Hawks and Falcons game with how it was officiated at the end I was able to step outside have a Smoke and come back in by the time they got some of those things worked out and the commercials.

 

[irocdave]

I am 46 YO and have been a fan of the NFL my entire life. Back in the 80' and 90's it was a true privilege to have your team (Seahawks of course) play on MNF. The internet didn't play a factor in watching the game or the reporting of the game, if you were fortunate and had cable and didn't live in the same town as your favorite team you would stay up late to watch the George Michael Sports machine. And NO, not hat George Michael.

The instant coverage of your favorite team via the internet, home market cable channels have had an effect.

The largest effect on TV viewers has to be the flooding of the market. Now we have Thursday night, sometimes Saturday night, Sunday Am, Sunday afternoon, Sunday Night and Monday night games. The NFL hasn't increased to 53 man roster or better yet the 48 man active roster to accommodate the increase in " performances". The NFL needs to increase the 53 man roster to 60ish and the 48 active roster to 53 ish. They also need to allow more training camp time with more hitting, although the NFLPA will push back. Allow the NFLPA to increase their rank and file and I'm sure they will allow the longer training camp.

The other elephant in the room is the crappy matchups foisted on the viewing audience. If the product sucks, for years, people stop watching. Thursday night games suck ass. If teams are going to play on Thursday night, make them play it coming off a by week. Teams that play a Monday night game, give them the game before having a by week.

The product on the field is not good right now. The immediate root cause is lack of preparation for the primetime game.

As mentioned, the coming cause for the downfall of the NFL is the wussifcation of our youth. I see it with my kids and have this same debate with my wife. "Oh, Tyler has a contusion and needs to wear a brace for 3 weeks, if he gets hit again on his for arm it could break his bone". Yea, that's what my wife came home with when my 6'1" 210 pound 13 YO son had a bruise on his forearm. I almost lost it. Contusion = F'ing bruise. Call it what it is. Bruises don't break F'ing bones. Trust me, if they did I would have had several when I was a kid. I spent more than my fair share of time in the ER when I was a kid and not once did I do this for a " contusion".

Man I could go on a much better rant for this, but I tell you what. THIS type of thing will kill football. It will also be a huge issue for the US working class white men in the coming years. We cant all be weenies.

Someone has to carry the load, and that load is getting heavier as more learn to be victims.

 

[RiverDog]

I'm going to put in another vote for too many penalties. And it's not just on the refs, the players are the ones committing the violations. I doubt anything can be done about this as they are coached to push the edge of what's allowed. But after watching last nights Ariz, Jets game it was ridiculous. Flag almost every play. Something needs to be done.

23 penalties last night. Try explaining that game to some football novice that wants to learn.

But as you eluded to, a lot of those were pre-snap from two really sloppy teams, not just the refs calling it too tight.

 

[Hawk-Lock]

Yeah Cuban was spot on with what he said a couple years ago. I remember when he made those statements, and most people just laughed because the NFL is so popular.

 

[Smellyman]

The NFL has a real blue collar fan base.

The Kaep thing is a bigger deal than most realize. I know a lot of guys who say they are done with the NFL for good.

I don't quite get it, but it is what it is.

White collar/blue collar, football covers all the demographics. College educated, not college educated.


A few mouth breathers leaving for NASCAR full time is fine by me.