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.

[GloryDayz]

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 think the "what's a catch" is legit. When you controlled a ball when you stepped out of bounds (the instant the clock would stop because the play is over), it's easy to question.

That being said, I'll ask again, if a player catches a ball on a slant route, on the home team's logo, runs to the sideline and has the ball knocked out of his hands after he steps out, is that an incomplete pass? If not, why not (based on the ruling the other day)?

And that's a serious question. I'm not even asking about an edge pass to a WR in the corner of the end zone, I'm talking about somebody near the 50 yard line that's taken steps in bounds?

[Amnorix]

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.

This view of what has happened is completely bizarre.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Football has been marketed to non-football fans for so long that they've alienated their core audience. The fascination with both yearly and daily fantasy has contributed to making a completely imbalanced game wherein the only thing the league wants to promote is offense in order to bring in new viewers who watch because of fantasy implications.

Couple that with their duplicitous stances on domestic violence and head trauma, and their obsessive desire to remove any element of personality from the game and it's clear that the NFL is a bloated, corrupt, incompetent institution.

As long as it is run this way I hope it continues to wither. Hopefully the bursting of the live TV bubble will force them to work on a better product instead of marketing football to people who don't like sports.

[Dayze]

two of the most boring things i have to listen people talk about
1. describing a dream they had to me
2. talking about their fantasy football team / matchup

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by Dayze

two of the most boring things i have to listen people talk about
1. describing a dream they had to me
2. talking about their fantasy football team / matchup

Dude...last week I had this dream about winning my fantasy football league...

[Dayze]

...tell me MOAR

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by GoChargers

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.

There was nothing atrocious about NBA behavior on-and-off the court compared to other sports leagues, and the NBA still has the biggest issue with disparity of any sport. You know when the average season begins that there are three teams, max, who are going to compete for a championship. This year it's two. The officiating is still poor.

The NBA evolved because it embraced a more international style of play thanks to the Seven Seconds or Less era in Phoenix. There were some changes in the hand check rules, but the rules have changed little. More than anything, the NBA benefited from the emergence of another once-in-a-lifetime player like LeBron James and a number of other incredibly gifted athletes. They've also allowed their players to humanize themselves both on the court and through social media platforms.

[GloryDayz]

Originally Posted by Dayze

two of the most boring things i have to listen people talk about
1. describing a dream they had to me
2. talking about their fantasy football team / matchup

[Bowser]

Originally Posted by DaFace

Dude...last week I had this dream about winning my fantasy football league...

Originally Posted by GloryDayz

[BlackOp]

I just sick of the games getting in the way of my commercials....

[BWillie]

Originally Posted by kcxiv

Yet, MLB players make more money then the rest, but thats not the point. The NFL isnt the same as it used to be. Godell is running it into the ****ing ground. Its only going to get worse and worse as he implements more stupid ****ing rules.

Goddell is screwed either way. If he doesn't make enough rules, the new age of soft whiny people will complain the players are not protected and the league doesn't care about their players. That it is a blood sport etc.

If Goddell makes too many rules, it pisses off the people who enjoy the hits and that sort of savagery.

[DRU]

I used to be addicted to Call of Duty. I played every single day and absolutely loved it. Then I went through a phase where I began to realize I was still playing all the time, but I wasn't enjoying it anymore. I was more annoyed / frustrated the whole the time than I was having fun. Eventually I just didn't turn it on one day, and it hasn't been on again since then. I'm 6 years clean now.

I'm at that stage with football right now, and even the Chiefs. I used to be addicted to football. Die hard Chiefs fan and football fan in general. Glued to my couch every Sunday from noon - midnight. The highs were extremely high and the lows were extremely low.

Over the last 5 years or so, I've found myself becoming more and more annoyed and frustrated while watching than I am enjoying it. I'm still watching, but I'm getting close to just turning it off and never turning it back on again.

Defenders can't play defense anymore. It's just ridiculous watching offenses march up and down the field without any worry of a defender actually trying to keep them from catching the ball. If they do try it's just a flag and a fine, so you can literally see them "letting up" to let the guy catch the ball.

It used to be that a play would happen, you would have a reaction (good or bad) and then you might go, oh, there's a flag.

Now, every single play is "is there a flag? No? Ok now I can react." That alone takes the immediate emotion out of whatever happened.

Even when calls go the Chiefs way I find myself annoyed because it was a ridiculous call on many occasions, and I find myself griping even when we gained a bunch of yards because of it. In the back of my mind I know a similar play is going to go against us, and it's all a matter of timing with such plays that make it a really big deal or not.

Nobody knows what a catch is anymore. "Rules specialists" get it wrong every time they try. Or is it the guys on the field getting it wrong? Nobody knows.

I feel like it's not about the players anymore. It's about rules and refs and how any particular ref/umpire/crew is going to see a subjective thing. A game, heck, a season can come down to things that have nothing to do with the players, and it seems to be happening more and more.

My highs and lows have settled into a "Meh" for pretty much everything. Chiefs have been taking the ball away a lot lately. In the past I'd be screaming and jumping and high fiving and ecstatic any time that would happen. Now I just kinda smile and think, oh, good job. I never jump off the couch anymore, though, for any reason good or bad.

Same when things go against us. I just kinda roll my eyes and think oh well. My emotion is gone because the game I fell in love with is completely different now. It's simply not the same game.

The experience at the stadium is a big part of that, too. I used to think nothing was better on earth than being at Arrowhead with thousands of fans. They've completely destroyed the stadium experience, though, which is why I killed my tickets at a time when we've won, what, 9 home games in a row..?? It's just not worth it anymore even when they're winning.

As others have mentioned, the commercials are just insane, too. For example, "Welcome back from the break. Let's watch this kickoff sail out of the back of the endzone, and now we'll take another commercial break."

Because of that I never watch any games live anymore. I record them so I can fast forward, and that's honestly a part of why I don't watch other games I think. I'm watching the Chiefs game recorded while the other games are on, and I don't care enough about the others to record them and watch later, so my viewership went from noon - midnight to just whenever I want to watch that one game.

So yeah, I'm still watching the Chiefs games, but I don't watch hardly any other games anymore, and I feel like I'm getting closer and closer to just quitting altogether. Same stages that my video game addiction went through. In a way it's kind of sad, like I've lost a long-time friend.

[Mr. Laz]

Originally Posted by chiefzilla1501

Goodell will run this game into the ground.

Stop Thursday night football and ****ing London regular season games. Stop the subjective nonsense on flags and focus on real penalties. Bite the bullet and pay out on player safety so we aren't forced to watch fifth string rejects at key positions.

You're a ****ing moron

Goodell isn't running anything

He does what he told, the most you can get pissed at him about is the inconsistency of the handling of the rules. Even that is influenced by outside forces.

You have the NFLPA ****ing with everything they can and you have the owners who are looking at everything from a money perspective.

fyi they have paid out on players safety SEVERAL times and the NFLPA wants to triple,quadruple dip. They will never stop asking for more even as they try to block safety rules and implementation.

[stevieray]

I can't remember how long ago it was..but Jimmy Raye said in 20 years, the NFL would be dead.

I don't watch as much as I nearly did. It's blatantly obvious they favor certain teams. OPI and DPI happen on every play, blatant holding happens every play....Hali used to get held on a consistant basis. It's the fallback to determine games, or take away big plays.

Money , IMO, has corrupted the game.

And it bums me out..I've loved football since I played as a kid.

....with each passing year it just all seems scripted and contrived.

[DaNewGuy]

Originally Posted by tomahawk kid

THIS.

Yea wait till the "eye test" ****s Kansas City. SAME people are gonna want replay back