NFL Ratings and Attendance

[flippy]

I hear lots about the decline in NFL ratings and attendance. Curious if you guys have any thoughts why? Think this impacts the Steelers?

I know we're all nuts. But in general, the discussion boards sometimes feel like the offseason now in the middle of the season, so I guess it's impacting the Steelers too.

Maybe there's more social outlets for people like FB and Twitter and we're just the ghost town of old farts. Hanging onto football like our parent's generation hangs on to baseball as the national pastime.

Maybe it's a combo of things. The cord cutters, over exposure with the Thursday night game being start of the end, NFL Network, The RedZone channel, fantasy football, commercials, the tivo effect, our lack of patience, officiating, challenges/rule changes, reduction in violence, watered down teams and talent, protesting the anthem, black lives matter, drunk a-holes ruin the live game experience, trump and the impact of people hating one another, head injuries, owners moving teams and taking advantage of taxpayers, lack of steroids, 3-4 hours to play 60 minutes, or the younger generation just doesn't care.

I think the ultimate sport for the new age would be hockey without intermissions. Or soccer mixed with violence.

As people's attention spans decrease, I think we need non stop stimulation. We need a 60 min game to end in 60 min. We need a better experience in the stadiums vs our homes. And I think society craves violence.

[Eich]

Contributors in no particular order:
-Recent weather-related disasters
-Kappernick
-Near universal hatred of the cheating *Pats success
-Trump/politics/world issues
-Sloppy, less-exciting play of recent. The league has been tweaking rules to make for more scoring. But how many high-flying offenses are we seeing?
-The way Goodell handles everything

[Slapstick]

You really think Kaepernick? Then again, I have an easy time believing that many of the people pissed at him are also pissed that Ezekiel Elliott was suspended...

[SteelerOfDeVille]

Kaep isn't even in the league - you think people stopped watching because of his presence? *dumbfounded*

[birtikidis]

I think it's mainly because of how politicized sports have become. Add in the higher costs of tickets and more people are turned off.

[flippy]

Kaep isn't even in the league - you think people stopped watching because of his presence? *dumbfounded*

I'm with you that it's dumbfounded, but I've spoken to a couple Yinzers that have told me they're boycotting teams with kneelers during the anthem.

I know everyone's always been a little crazy including me, but the current social climate in the world has made more people passionately crazy and sometimes it feels like all logic is lost on more and more people every day. It's like some combination of the media, internet, etc. combined with our lack of attention spans means people are having insane gut reactions to any and everything these days even when there's no real basis for it.

The scary part is technology is changing everything at an alarming rate that's going to leave bigger portions of our society behind and there's going to become a bigger divide between the haves and the have nots driving more insanity in the collective psyche. Maybe that's how every generation has felt as they've gotten older, but change in the past happened at a glacial pace. Now things change seemingly instantly compounding the problems.

[birtikidis]

I'm with you that it's dumbfounded, but I've spoken to a couple Yinzers that have told me they're boycotting teams with kneelers during the anthem.

I know everyone's always been a little crazy including me, but the current social climate in the world has made more people passionately crazy and sometimes it feels like all logic is lost on more and more people every day. It's like some combination of the media, internet, etc. combined with our lack of attention spans means people are having insane gut reactions to any and everything these days even when there's no real basis for it.

The scary part is technology is changing everything at an alarming rate that's going to leave bigger portions of our society behind and there's going to become a bigger divide between the haves and the have nots driving more insanity in the collective psyche. Maybe that's how every generation has felt as they've gotten older, but change in the past happened at a glacial pace. Now things change seemingly instantly compounding the problems.

Kap doesn't need to be in the league for the ramification of his actions to be felt. People watch sports to escape not to get in even deeper.

[flippy]

Kap doesn't need to be in the league for the ramification of his actions to be felt. People watch sports to escape not to get in even deeper.

That's a great point. The Steelers and the NFL are an escape for me and I don't want to think about this stuff for 3-4 hours on Sunday. I just want to be entertained.

[Mr.wizard]

I think the reason attendance is down is because it's just a better experience to watch it at home.

I think the reason ratings are down is because Direct TV and the price of the package, it's not that less people are watching, it's just that more people are watching together and at bars.

[AzStillers1989]

I hear lots about the decline in NFL ratings and attendance. Curious if you guys have any thoughts why? Think this impacts the Steelers?

I know we're all nuts. But in general, the discussion boards sometimes feel like the offseason now in the middle of the season, so I guess it's impacting the Steelers too.

Maybe there's more social outlets for people like FB and Twitter and we're just the ghost town of old farts. Hanging onto football like our parent's generation hangs on to baseball as the national pastime.

Maybe it's a combo of things. The cord cutters, over exposure with the Thursday night game being start of the end, NFL Network, The RedZone channel, fantasy football, commercials, the tivo effect, our lack of patience, officiating, challenges/rule changes, reduction in violence, watered down teams and talent, protesting the anthem, black lives matter, drunk a-holes ruin the live game experience, trump and the impact of people hating one another, head injuries, owners moving teams and taking advantage of taxpayers, lack of steroids, 3-4 hours to play 60 minutes, or the younger generation just doesn't care.

I think the ultimate sport for the new age would be hockey without intermissions. Or soccer mixed with violence.

As people's attention spans decrease, I think we need non stop stimulation. We need a 60 min game to end in 60 min. We need a better experience in the stadiums vs our homes. And I think society craves violence.

To your point on other outlets for Steelers related information. I'm part of quite a few groups on facebook and get constant updates. I went full MIA from planet steelers a little over a year ago up until recently.... Mostly due to my own superstitions but thats another story.

Honestly though I do enjoy reading the conversations between some of the members here. There is a certain sarcasm that I enjoy haha.

[The Man of Steel]

The Millennial Generation with all of their dysfunction has kind of taken the joy out of the NFL for me.

[Slapstick]

I think the truth is that we've just grown accustomed to the dysfunction of the previous generations...or that with pervasive social media and 24 news cycles in sports, we are way more aware of the dysfunction as it happens instead of finding out about it afterwards.

[NorthCoast]

It's all about tweets, twits, grams, chats... etc. No room for intelligent discourse. Most debates now degenerate into insults and inflammatory comments after one or two exchanges of intelligent observations.

... sigh

[flippy]

It's all about tweets, twits, grams, chats... etc. No room for intelligent discourse. Most debates now degenerate into insults and inflammatory comments after one or two exchanges of intelligent observations.

... sigh

That seems to be a society problem in general and not just football fans. It's near impossible to have conversations with people any more. With the lack of attention spans and lack of logic and reason. It's like people are programmed to argue with one another.

It's like everyone is on eggshells and has started to assume the worst in others as a starting point. It's like people are afraid of what they think and are ready to lash out to protect their own fragile psyches.

Sometimes the only thing that makes sense to me is the social commentary coming out of South Park.

[RuthlessBurgher]

Rating and attendance are down because as the diehard fans grow old and die, they are not being replaced by new, young diehard fans. Young people aren't going to watch a 3-hour-long full game when they can just watch a couple-minute-long highlight reel later on their phone. My kids don't want to sit through a half-hour-long show on TV...they'd much rather watch 5-minute-long snippets on YouTube instead. I don't get it, but their Instagram and Snapchat are much more interesting, apparently.