Posted on 02/04/2016 8:48:44 PM PST by MinorityRepublican
In a way, that sounds like a strange question, because football has never had a lack of fans. Last year's Super Bowl, for example, was a ratings bonanza for NBC, with some 114.5 million viewers -- climbing to 120.8 million during the final minutes -- making it the most viewed television program in U.S. history.
Next year, network television looks set to grow the NFL juggernaut further, with NBC and CBS brokering a deal earlier this week rumored to be in the $450 million range to split the Thursday night prime-time games package.
So the problem, right now at least, is not audiences or money. Instead, the question is who these huge audiences will be able to watch in the years to come, and whether they will want to keep tuning in.
Setting aside the question of violence that has plagued football on and off the field (and let's be clear: that's a huge thing to be setting aside), the reality is that fewer kids are playing the sport, largely because fewer adults are letting them. In part that is down to a broader apathy among American youth toward sports -- a number of recent studies confirm a steady falloff in youth athletic participation as kids are simply burning out in an increasingly specialized pastime by the time they hit their early teens.
But while baseball, for example, has seen a 4.3% drop in youth participation, and basketball is down 6.8%, football's numbers are plummeting at a far greater rate: tackle football has lost almost 18% of its youth players, while touch football has lost more than 30%.
What is happening to America's football players?
Doctors are able to answer that question. In the wake of studies that better understand the connection between football and chronic traumatic encephalopathy, or CTE...
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
What a maroon!
“What a maroon!”
Which points do you disagree with?
Stupor Bowl Day is better tha Martin Luther King Ski Day for short lift lines...
Stupor Bowl Day is better than Martin Luther King Ski Day for short lift lines...
Are you not entertained?
It isn't crowded at the range, either. I probably shouldn't be giving the secret away...
At my local range, any day with snow is a good day to go. BLOAT.
It’s the best large city park detecting day of the year too, ‘cept for being in Bay Area so GGP is out from all the festivity crap...
The only reason football is so popular can be summed up with one word:
GAMBLING
As a sport, it's ridiculously boring.
3 hours of standing around occasionally interrupted with 8 seconds of sports being played.
Not nearly as bleak as CNN’s.
It's equally as boring if your watching it on a TV screen....I sat thru one game and said never again....
But I do live in “Steeler Country” and let me tell you everything stops when they play around here. The people take this very seriously and know each player as if their own family member..... Stores have to schedule staff so all can see at least part of the game, but business is far less for the game going on.....flags go up everywhere....and oh THE FOOD MENU for all the parties galore is off the scale!....Rich or poor they all party hearty here.
And you should hear these people when they loose a game....emotions are high....they actually will scold the players! It's really quite an all consuming event for the people here......not me...no thanks.
What? Since last week? Since I was a kid (in the 1950's and 1960's), baseball has seen a drop in youth participation of about 90%. In those days, EVERYBODY played baseball, knew the top MLB teams and players, etc. Nowadays, most kids play soccer (Borrrrrrrring). And some MLB baseball teams play in mostly empty stadiums. If any big sport is dying, it's baseball.
I will never understand why so many people get so emotionally invested in something that has absolutely no bearing on their lives.
It's like they've been brainwashed or something.
With technology you can take the boredom out of the game. For example, for a football game that starts at 1pm, DVR the telecast and then return at around 3:15pm to start watching. If you work the remote well, easy to learn, you will watch every play and finish the game around the time the game ends in real time. NFL games should be 1hr, NCAA games 1hr 10min. Use the same technique for other sports, MLB 1hr. NHL 1hr 15min. Wiz right through the commercials and dead time, and sports becomes exciting. The only side effect is you can never return to watching sports live, it moves too slow.
It’s fun. Outside of staying alive, everything else has no bearing in your life. As Francis Costello stated in “The Departed” “I do not need p***y anymore either, but I like it.”
Let’s go...North Carolina, Panthers...
love that QB...
Now that's a h**l of an idea! However, it's going to be below freezing Sunday and my range is outdoors... I know I should get some cold weather practice in but I'm just not feeling it right now...
If anything has dampened my enthusiasm for the NFL over the past few years it has been the rampant bad officiating. This past season there were Sundays I didn't even bother tuning in to a game, just blew it off and did stuff around the house. And it is not just "my team" - it is across the board. It is readily apparent there are three tiers in the NFL. There are the currently "favored teams" the teams currently "out of favor" with the powers that be, and many in no-man's-land in the middle.
Favored teams can expect their players to get extraordinary slack on penalties. Un-favored teams can expect to be penalized for the slightest hint of infraction. It is not as rigged as say a WWE title belt match, but it certainly is no-longer a fair game either. Un-favored teams have to overcome tremendous odds and adversity to win. Some still do. Favored teams can skate by to wins with little coordinated effort.
It is still fun to watch, the athletic skill displayed is amazing and entertaining. The biased officiating is teeth-grinding frustrating. Enough so that it is overcoming the entertainment value.
What I don't understand is the mass hysteria surrounding football that the other poster described.
It goes will beyond a passing interest.
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