This offseason the Ravens made a splash signing by acquiring Derrick Henry, aka King Henry. But we all know who the real king is – the NFL.
Turn on a Week 4 Thursday Night dud on Prime Video and chances are the TV ratings will blow the doors off an NBA or an MLB playoff broadcast. As fans of the game, we can’t get enough, but lately, more and more fans have become somewhat detached from the NFL, particularly Baby Boomers. And there’s an entire litany of reasons why for them, the NFL is just not the same.
Sloppy Play
Years ago, NFL teams would play as many as 6 preseason games. And those games were on the tail end of many two-a-day, full contact practices. By the time the regular season was scheduled to start, teams were dialed in. They worked through the failed execution during practice and the preseason and by kickoff of Game 1, they were finely tuned engines ready to compete. The product on the field was tight, a byproduct of their preparedness.
Today, in the interest of player safety (yeah, ok), the physicality of training camp has been ratcheted down dramatically and for starters, the preseason isn’t a job requirement anymore. Most will stand along the sidelines in street clothes doing little, other than clowning around with teammates. Then, when the bright lights of the regular season are turned on, they shine upon a poorly prepared product. Now, the first few games of the regular season have become preseason-like.
The inferior display presented on NFL fields looks like a knock off, of what the league used to be.
Yet we buy it just the same.
Preseason
Even though most teams preserve their starters for the regular season, enveloping them in bubble wrap (or so it seems) to protect their investments, the NFL still charges fans usurious prices for glorified scrimmages. And it’s not as if season ticket holders have a choice. If you don’t pay for the fake games, you are denied access to the regular season contests. Refusal to consent to paying for both excessively priced events, results in forfeiture of any applicable permanent seat license fees that were already paid, which incidentally cost a few thousand dollars each.
“Take it or leave it son!”, is the not-so-subtle message.
If you don’t want to pay the ransom, the NFL will find others who will.
TV and The NFL
I’m old enough to remember the days when games were only played on Sundays, Mondays and Thanksgiving during the regular season. Today, there isn’t a day of the week that is safe from the NFL if they can make an extra buck. And, over the past few years, watching many of those games requires an app, access to which will force you to pony up more money if you want to connect.
Prime Video, Peacock, Netflix – the list is expanding, and you know that with each new sign-up the NFL is getting a rub on your monthly subscription fee. They’ve got you by the short hairs.
Simultaneously, out of the other side of their greedy mouths, the face of the league will go on and on about the “fan experience”. Roger Goodell had this to say on CNBC about streaming services.
“The bottom line is, you have to go where your fans are, and our fans are moving off onto streaming platforms. Netflix is a good example of that. Peacock is a good example of that. Amazon is a good example of that. Our fans are on different platforms, and we need to reach them. But at the same time, over 85 percent of our games are still available on free television. We think we have the most fan-friendly policies for our friends and the media world of any league by far; 100 percent of our games for the two teams participating.
“We really think that those policies are really beneficial to our growth, to our supporting more people watching NFL football and the fans enjoyment of it. But streaming also brings in technologies that I think are going to be really valuable to improve the experience for consumers. I think there’s more things that they can do with their platforms and technology that I think is very, very positive with our fans.”
This guy is a snake oil salesman. Greedell will make these newly discovered revenue sources that are forced upon fans, seem like the league is doing YOU a favor while they count their money.
Here’s the clip from that CNBC interview.
In a CNBC interview, NFL commish Roger Goodell talked about the league's push to multiple streaming platforms.
"You have to go where your fans are and our fans are moving off onto streaming platforms." pic.twitter.com/pRuGJj0xe0
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) September 6, 2024
So, if you’re keeping score, besides all of the traditional tariffs the league places on the major networks to broadcast their declining product, cash pours in from these “very positive with our fans” sources:
* YouTube TV: $2 billion annually for Sunday Ticket
* Amazon: $1 billion annually for Thursday Night Football, $120 million for playoff game, and $100 million for Black Friday game.
* Netflix: $150 million for two Christmas Day games
* Peacock: $110 million for playoff game last year
Source: Awful Announcing
The spoils of kings…
More, more, more
So as the money rolls into the NFL’s coffers like a freight train, the product on the field is in steep decline. Despite efforts to protect players, injuries are out of control, keeping star players off the field and consequently eroding the quality of play. The games are over-officiated, undermining your viewing enjoyment. And not only are games peppered with an overload of yellow laundry, but calls are also inconsistent across the various crews.
No one pays to watch the zebras, yet they’ve become a bigger and bigger part of the game. Exciting plays are negated by ticky-tacky penalties that have no bearing on the play’s outcome. One crew has a different interpretation of illegal formation while others protect the quarterback differently – sometimes even in the same game. And many times, such disparity in flagged plays takes place during games involving the Kansas City Chiefs. Every fan across the league outside of the Kansas City metropolitan area will agree with me on this.
I’ve already opined on the disparity in calls when the Ravens played in KC on opening night. Baltimore was hosed. Players and pundits from across the league with no ties to the Ravens, complained on Twitter about the favoritism the Chiefs enjoy as it relates to officiating (and practically everything else).
On Sunday night Kirk Cousins led the Falcons down the field against the Chiefs late in the 4th quarter for a go-ahead touchdown. Trailing 22-17, the Falcons faced a 3rd & 5 from the KC 6 with 4:12 left in the game. And then this happened.
Refs let the Chiefs get away with a lot of contact on this pass to Pitts. Falcons end up turning it over on downs. #KCvsATL pic.twitter.com/rSFnM2tIb8
— Rate the Refs App (@Rate_the_Refs) September 23, 2024
No penalty was called.
But when the Chiefs hosted the Bengals, Cincinnati was flagged for DPI (below).
It is just so grotesquely one-sided.
There have been debates about what city has the best 12th man. No city does. The best 12th man is a traveling tour band. Who is this band? Whichever officiating crew has the Chiefs game.
It makes you nuts.
LA Chargers safety Derwin James has been suspended for one game due to his repeat violations of player safety rules – a somewhat unprecedented suspension. Guess who the LAC play this week?
During last night’s game in Buffalo, Trevor Lawrence was tackled below the knee. If it had been Patrick Mahomes, the only way this isn’t flagged is if the State Farm poster child was having relations with the referee’s wife, and maybe not even then if Mahomes agreed to get an autograph from Taylor Swift.
WOW: The refs missed a low hit penalty call on the #Bills defender who yanked #Jaguars QB Trevor Lawrence down, says the ESPN booth.
👀
Jacksonville was then forced to punt.
(Questionable Call: Sponsored by @LASIKdotcom)
pic.twitter.com/gn5jXldAIN— MLFootball (@_MLFootball) September 23, 2024
But seriously, on what planet is this not a RTP call when 15 for the Chiefs is behind center? Laundry would have fallen from the sky like hail during a storm in Colorado.
It is so obvious, so real, and the league doesn’t give a shit! The 32 Godfathers (aka the owners) have the power to change this. But they don’t because somewhere along the way the league concluded that such favoritism has financial rewards. And so, they just let it go on. They look the other way and label the cheating as the cost of doing business.
There’s nothing fair about it, but the NFL knows that it controls fans, their customers, their sheeples.
They just don’t care what you think.
This is what they care about:
The Chiefs vs Falcons SNF game was the most watched week 3 SNF game ever with 24.8 million viewers. pic.twitter.com/8KraHqLmc1
— Everything Georgia (@GAFollowers) September 24, 2024
Last season it was estimated that Taylor Swift and all her porcelain princess-ness at Chiefs games resulted in a $331M windfall for the NFL, according to Apex Marketing.
Do you think for a second that isn’t going to be protected by the league? There’s a reason that CBS’ No. 1 crew of Jim Nantz and Tony Romo are assigned to every Chiefs game on their network. Every. Single. One. The Chiefs could play The Little Sisters of the Poor and Romo would be slobber-knocking over anything the Chiefs’ quarterback does.
“Look at the way Patrick Mahomes casually walks over to the water cooler, takes a sip and then calmly puts the cup down. He’s just incredible, Jim!”
This past Sunday in Dallas, the Ravens played the Cowboys. During the game, Nnamdi Madubuike nearly tackled Dak Prescott in the end zone for a safety. Since desperate times call for desperate measures, Dak decided to shuffle the ball to offensive lineman Tyler Smith. No one else was around the ball. Only Smith, who caught it.
Prescott was in the end zone, chucked it to an illegal receiver inside the tackle box and the ball never made it beyond the line of scrimmage. THAT’S intentional grounding, and since Prescott was in the end zone, the penalty equates to a safety.
Controversial play in Dallas, with Dak Prescott's throw being called for illegal touching on guard Tyler Smith rather than intentional grounding (which would have been a safety). Here's the play and the start of the discussion. pic.twitter.com/xXlRR7oKTb
— The Comeback NFL (@TheComebackNFL) September 22, 2024
Instead, the Cowboys got the ball at the original line of scrimmage, the 7-yard line. Not only did the officials miss the call, they didn’t even move the Cowboys back half the distance to the goal line for a call that is supposed to carry a loss of down. When asked about the play during his Monday morning presser, John Harbaugh had this to say:
“I’ve never heard of this before, and I don’t know if it kind of came up there, or if they have seen this before, I’m not sure, but they said it’s not intentional grounding because somebody caught it, even though it’s an illegal receiver that caught it, which is a penalty. So, basically, they get rewarded for having a penalty there. That’s probably not what they want, by the rules, so we’ll see. Maybe it’s a loophole in the rule, I’m not sure. It’s something they’ll probably look at. Because a receiver caught it, you can’t call intentional grounding even though it’s an illegal receiver, and there’s no eligible receiver in the area, which would constitute grounding.”
These horrific calls and the playing of favorites doesn’t escape the notice of players.
Yet this officiating ineptitude continues. Why? Because people will still watch. People will continue to pay and consequently, the league doesn’t care. They just let it go.
If you had a restaurant and served bad food at high-end prices and there was still a waiting list to get a table at your establishment, would you change anything? Of course not, rhetorical question.
And so this officiating without accountability goes on and on and on like a Stephen Bishop song.
How do you know when Roger Goodell is lying?
His lips move.
I mentioned Goodell and his disingenuous gum-flapping about the fan experience. Said experiences are viewed by Ebenezer Goodell as nothing more than opportunities to drive revenue. The Commish talks regularly about player safety. But it’s nothing more than a big campaign to cover the league’s ass.
Sure, they’ll outlaw hip-drop tackles. They’ll flag for shots to the head. They’ll force in-line players to wear those Great Gazoo helmets during practice. They’ll limit offseason contact and contact during training camp. That all seems reasonable if the intent truly is to protect the players. But it’s not. It’s all about staving off lawsuits.
But that won’t stop them from sending teams on the road for a Thursday night shit show after playing on Sunday afternoon. That won’t stop them from sending players abroad to sometimes play in substandard conditions on substandard fields. That won’t stop them from pushing for an 18-game season, because all these things make the league money. The hypocrisy!
The players are the pawns in the grand scheme of things, like the gladiators of the Roman empire.
Remember when gambling was considered taboo by the NFL. Well, that was bullshit too. Why else do you think injury reports exist? What is the real purpose behind publishing a list of injured players? To help opponents prepare? Please! It’s to prevent sketchy, behind the scenes behavior that could be parlayed (pun intended) into a financial bonanza. It’s the NFL trying to police itself from insider trading.
Las Vegas as a home for an NFL team was considered off limits for decades. But then one day the NFL thought, “Well why not join the party? Think of all the money we could make!”
And so it was Viva Las Vegas, in a huge way.
The league now promotes gambling apps. They benefit from that with skimming and ad dollars, plus it feeds their constituents. It keeps them coming back, tuning in, betting more. These apps are like drug dealers to a crackhead. But bless their collective heart, they will end each promo with the cautionary message, “Only bet what you can afford.”
It’s freaking laughable.
Flesh For Fantasy
Even if you aren’t a gambler, you might be a fantasy football player. Fantasy football keeps fans engaged even when the games are garbage. You still watch because your fantasy roster represents skin in the game. It keeps TV ratings up even when the programming sucks. And the league scrapes its share from all the fantasy sites. More “drugs” for more “junkies”.
I have a daily text thread with a few buddies who enjoy the NFL, to an extent. But their first sports love is what they call “the world game” or “the beautiful game” – futbol, more commonly known in this part of the globe as soccer.
I don’t share their passion for soccer but I do appreciate their love of the game. They’ll text at length about televised European Premier League (“EPL”) games. You can feel their passion, enthusiasm and joy. But when the topic shifts to the NFL, what they talk most about is the sloppy play and the way officiating crews dictate a game’s flow. The vibe of the text thread shifts to anger and disgust. I fear that one day, the shift will be towards apathy. And the NFL will lose my friends.
If these sports aficionados feel apathy, I wonder what less engaged fans feel. Will gambling, fantasy football, the Kansas City Chiefs and Taylor Swift be enough to keep the league afloat and the dollars flowing in?
Mark Cuban, obviously disgusted by the league’s greed back in March of 2014 said:
“I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion. I’m just telling you.
“Just watch. 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.”
Cuban’s timing is a bit off but I get what he’s saying. Being a guy on the streets who covers a team for a living, I feel the turn happening, albeit slowly. I’ve been a guest speaker at Ravens Roost and Ravens Nest meetings. The drop off in membership and attendance is obvious. And these good people are the lifeblood of #RavensFlock.
The NFL is clearly still king, but kingdoms fall; kings get dethroned.
If Cuban proves to be right, it’s pork chops for everyone.
16 Responses
Great incisive post, Tony! Agree as to all and I’m in the Cuban camp when it comes to predicting the game’s extinction! This is not the SPORT I grew up loving! In fact, it’s really a business masquerading as a sport! And, the streaming is a precursor to…..pay for view! That will toll the death knell to the NFL, in my opinion…….
SPOT ON Tony. It’s all about the money!!!
Anyone over 60-65 who has been a football fan since childhood knows the above article is 100% true. I’m all for capitalism but the NFL is a cartel. Just read this article from the Washington Post a while back
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/interactive/2024/nfl-concussion-settlement/
Look at this most recent court settlement over Sunday Ticket as a Federal judge overturns $4.7 billion jury verdict in ‘Sunday Ticket’ lawsuit and rules for NFL. Its like Vito Corleone and all the judges in his pocket.
Lets get you to bed grampa
And you be sure to have Momma cut your hair, wash your Taylor Swift t-shirt, give you a Life Saver and wipe out the crust around your eyes.
If you’re lucky, maybe she’ll even teach you how to spell.
While I agree with many of your general points, he is right in pointing out (sarcastically) that this was one of the more “back in my day…” whiney, strawman-filled things you’ve put out here.
But at least you raised the level of your analysis by responding with the unbeatable spelling and grammar arguments and ad hominem attacks.
We come here because you’re usually better than this, Tony.
Go sniff some more of Mahomes jock strap
Great article! The worst thing to ever happen to the National Football League was Roger Goodell!
Now, if you really want to impress me do an article like this on the leagues domestic violence problem. This will matriculate onto major news syndications like fox and we can finally get rid of Roger “dodger” Goodell.
Besides, it’s long overdue. Also, I would love to see the metrics on the baby boomer viewership losses.
Valid points. But it’s all about individual perspective. Chiefs are the new Pats who were the Niners who were the Cowboys / Steelers in regards to flags. There have always been a lot of flags and refs have always struggled to officiate games properly. The actual game of football is better than ever. Scheme Creativity, better athletes, analytics , legal gambling , fantasy football etc —- and stadium experiences are better than ever. It’s just that we change and our expectations change, and it sucks to expect more and not be given more in return
It has always and always will be about the cash. Owners want more and we keep giving it to them. Tickets prices – merchandise prices and everything in between are up and won’t come back down. To come up to bmore from where I live and take my family to a game would cost me about $1000 bucks now. That ain’t cheap and the juice isn’t necessarily worth the squeeze.
But we are hooked on this sh— like a leaner on the H. So plopped in front the big screen on Sunday night is where I will be. Go ravens
The game is better than ever? Too bad you’re obviously not old enough to have seen the game when it was a great……SPORT!
Three yards and a cloud of dust ain’t it, Andy Griffith. And I’ve drank more beer, pissed more blood and ban-ed more $&@/-@$& than anyone in this comment section. I’ve worn single bar helmets, fist fought in the bleachers at memorial, used a rotary phone and spoke in reverence to Unitas. So hit the bricks with your assumptions
Tony! Tony! LET HIM UP, YOU’RE KILLING HIM! – Agree with you 100%
So true about the preseason. It’s obvious for the past five years that it takes the first three weeks of regular season play for all teams to get both sides of the ball on point.
Also very true that the NFL’s concerns about personnel safety is a gaslighting CYA theme
Officiating is definitely biased
All major sports are businesses. It appears that the NFL is competing with the NBA and UEFA and all the other soccer leagues for more eyeballs.
It’s a global thing. There’s billions of potential fans and even more money. We see how the NFL and NBA are expanding by playing in foreign markets. In order to appeal to these markets the leagues have to have a product that will catch and keep the fans’ attention.
That’s why I think Goodell and the NFL does the things they do. The officiating, story lines and likable players, gambling, etc. is to catch and keep fans interested. There’s a lot of money out there to go around. He’s definitely looking to get the NFL it’s piece of the pie.
Incisive article Tony. My group and I turned in our season tickets a few years back (we had been in Section 553 religiously since the first game at M&T, and were season tickets holders since 96). We got tired of feeling like the goal of the team was to separate us from every dollar and not caring if their product was worth the experience or not. I personally don’t watch any other games except for the Ravens, and I agree 100% that too many things are decided by referees. If you think about it, the NFL is a $10 billion and growing business-what other enterprise of that size leaves its Marketing to “chance.” With the focus on gambling and the enormous dollars involved with that along with the incompetence of the officials, it is just a matter of time until there is a controversy like the NBA had a few years back with the referees.
Tony, please go ask your buddy honest Steve the owner about it.