NFL Inevitable implosion

[ScubaSteve]

Now, let me first say that I love the NFL and think Marc Cuban is kind of a tool. Plus the NBA isn't doing so hot from a business perspective. But he does have some good points here that I've been thinking about a lot recently:

"I think the NFL is 10 years away from an implosion," Cuban said. "When pigs get fat, hogs get slaughtered. And they're getting hoggy. When you try to take it too far, people turn the other way. I'm just telling you, when you got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns against you."

"They're trying to take over every night of TV," Cuban said. "Initially, it'll be, 'Yeah, they're the biggest-rating thing that there is.' OK, Thursday, that's great, regardless of whether it impacts [the NBA] during that period when we cross over. Then if it gets Saturday, now you're impacting colleges. Now it's on four days a week... It's all football. At some point, the people get sick of it."

source: http://deadspin.com/mark-cuban-greedy-nfl-is-10-years-from-implosion-1550221837?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_twitter&utm_source=deadspin_twitter&utm_medium=socialflow

My question is, do you think the NFL's greed will eventually be its downfall? Or is it too big to fail (for lack of better words)?

Other points to consider:

• Goodell wanting to change rules (i.e. anything that has to do with kicking the football)
• Attempting to expand to Europe even though no one there wants it and is proven to not work
• Recent reports that the NFL has hindered the evolution of the Madden video game franchise to adhere to a certain image
• Pink-outs during all of October (funding research is one thing, flaunting it for profit is another)
• Notoriously over-priced Super Bowl parking/arrangements
• The upcoming movie 'Draft Day' which I first thought was a joke
• The idea that commercials and challenges are drastically increasing game length

[CS85]

The NFLPA will strike before the NFL gets too much more out of hand. Eric Winston's come right out and said that the NFLPA will never entertain an 18 game season and that his priority is protecting the health of the players from the ever-expanding greed of owners. At some point there is going to be a reckoning between those two bodies where the league has to recognize it's own limits, but it's not gonna be anytime soon. This idea of Thursday/Fri/Sat games is not going to happen because TNF is already proving to be a dismal experiment. Why waste 2-3 other nights of the week on games where players are basically half-dead and neither coach can gameplan?

A lot of this was discussed in the "NFL Breaking Point" thread, also.

[walkerws]

I agree that FRI & SAT games should be non-starters. It'd end up being a huge mess logistically. Moving the extra point instead of eliminating it is ok I think, or what one owner brought up was raising the bar 5 feet. Kickers will have to be better and it'd make for more "gutsy 4th down calls if a team is too close to punt, but too far away for a kicker to keep the ball 15 feet off the ground from 40-50 yards away plus the snap. Removing kick returns is ridiculous to me as well. I think the chance of injury on a kickoff is similar to any other play now that they've reduced the amount of players that can congregate to make a wedge. Americans love hte violence of football and will always say that players knew what they were getting into. the NFL, barring a huge blunder by the owners/ commisioner, will be just as strong in 10 years as it is now.

[The Six]

I hope it implodes. The NFL product has been getting worse, and football culture is abhorrent.

[OnWis97]

I don't know. The NFL seems a little full of itself with talk of expanding overseas, 18 games, more playoff teams, etc. But I don't know that any of this will kill fan interest. There are a lot of things that bug me about the NFL:

• The never-ending coverage from sports media (but that has to be at least partly a function of the current level of fan interest). And this is more the media and fans' fault than the NFL's.
• The treatment of players. It's the only major pro league where I think most players are treated unfairly from a pay and contract-security standpoint.
• And I have to tell you I am flat out offended by a league that takes a home game away from a team so they can be the "home team" in London; sticking the season ticket-holder with only 7 games while still charging them for two pre-season games. I am also offended by a league/teams that bilk the tax payers out of money in the name of keeping a team for "civic pride" and then blacking out the games once the $14 per hour fans can't afford PSLs and $200 tickets. There should be outrage over this. But there is not.

I don't think this stuff bothers most fans. And I think if the NFL is smart enough to recognize that certain things won't work, they'll be just fine regarding their "pig" components.

If the NFL takes a step backwards, it's going to be the head injury issue...kids no longer playing football when there are so many safer sports to play. We may run out of a supply of our robots warriors. That (or the rule changes meant to combat that; thereby changing the game drastically) is what may kill the NFL. But the fact that it's immensely popular and is acting like it seems to be working out.

[smith03]

I agree about losing the home game to London or wherever. selling a new stadium base in part of how much game day revenue comes into the city and then moving a home game to London after the stadium deal is done (I am thinking of Minneapolis)

[Needschat]

Over-saturation is what's going to be the league's downfall. Having all but one game on Sunday is what made it special. Thursday games were for Thanksgiving, and then only two - Dallas shouldn't have the second game, rotate it among those that want it.

[Cosmic]

Does anyone remember what happened with the primetime Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? No matter how popular something is, you can't run it every night of the week.

[colortv]

In think it's hard to oversaturate when you play as few games as the NFL does. I could see having games on Thursdays, but anymore than that and it could be risking something.

[FiddySicks]

I've been saying basically this same thing for the past few years. Roger Goodell is going to end up ruining what right now is the best sport in the country by trying to fix a formula that isn't broken. Sure, the NFL needed some help when it came to player safety, but none of what's been done or proposed is going to help that. Paul Tagliabue basically handed the reigns of the most successful sport in the world to Roger Goodell and he's done nothing but make it progressively worse by trying to put his own personal stamp on the league. For all the talk about the failings of guys like Gary Bettman, Bud Selig, and David Stern, there simply isn't a worse commissioner in the big four than Goodell, because in comparison, he had a really simple job. All he had to do was keep up the status quo, and instead he's doing all he can to steer the whole thing into the rocks.

[IceCap]

I've been saying basically this same thing for the past few years. Roger Goodell is going to end up ruining what right now is the best sport in the country by trying to fix a formula that isn't broken. Sure, the NFL needed some help when it came to player safety, but none of what's been done or proposed is going to help that. Paul Tagliabue basically handed the reigns of the most successful sport in the world to Roger Goodell and he's done nothing but make it progressively worse by trying to put his own personal stamp on the league. For all the talk about the failings of guys like Gary Bettman, Bud Selig, and David Stern, there simply isn't a worse commissioner in the big four than Goodell, because in comparison, he had a really simple job. All he had to do was keep up the status quo, and instead he's doing all he can to steer the whole thing into the rocks.

Paul Tagliabue was terrible. He turned a blind eye to the concussion issue and he once suspended a man for eight games for killing someone. Goodell couldn't keep the status quo because the status quo was broken beyond repair.

[floydnimrod]

It has already imploded for me. I watched 2 whole games last year and couldn't even make it through a third (the Super Bowl). The threat of CTE and the overbearing sense of "football is the greatest thing ever and everything else is for fairies"* killed the whole thing for me.

*I am in no way saying that anyone on here is like that (maybe there are, but I don't read the NFL threads usually), but there are too many people I know in real life who are like that.

[FiddySicks]

I've been saying basically this same thing for the past few years. Roger Goodell is going to end up ruining what right now is the best sport in the country by trying to fix a formula that isn't broken. Sure, the NFL needed some help when it came to player safety, but none of what's been done or proposed is going to help that. Paul Tagliabue basically handed the reigns of the most successful sport in the world to Roger Goodell and he's done nothing but make it progressively worse by trying to put his own personal stamp on the league. For all the talk about the failings of guys like Gary Bettman, Bud Selig, and David Stern, there simply isn't a worse commissioner in the big four than Goodell, because in comparison, he had a really simple job. All he had to do was keep up the status quo, and instead he's doing all he can to steer the whole thing into the rocks.

Paul Tagliabue was terrible. He turned a blind eye to the concussion issue and he once suspended a man for eight games for killing someone. Goodell couldn't keep the status quo because the status quo was broken beyond repair.

I'm talking more about the business model than issues such as discipline or safety. I agree with you on that part, actually. When Goodell first came in I really loved the guy because of the way he handled things like the Mike Vick case. He put his foot down and made an example of guys who were delinquents and that's exactly what the game needed. What he absolutely didn't need to do was mess with the basic structure of how the league was run. No matter what your opinion is on Tagliabue, there's simply no arguing that the league was at it's apex of popularity during his tenure, and a lot of that had to do with how the business model worked. It was damn near perfect, and Goodell has been slowly chipping away at that ever since.

[JackieMoon]

The NFL is the new NASCAR. You saw what happened to NASCAR, it will happen to the NFL as well. It is nothing anymore but a 3 hour commercial. The owners and Goddell need to get their heads out of their asses. Take it back to the way it was in the 80's. I use to love football. It was sacred and made me look forward to September. Now, it's pretty much bleh at best.

[Soarindude]

I think the theory behind becoming 'burnt out of NFL football' because it's on every single day (Well, he really only named Thursday Saturday Sunday and Monday) doesn't make much sense. All the other sports are on everyday, every sportscenter, pretty much all the time. The NFL is only on 3 days a week now, and I really doubt they push into 4 with Saturday. Three isn't that much, to be honest.

However, I do think the NFL needs to get their act together. There is some things that could lead to a potential implosion of the league. I just dont think the "on every other day of the week" is one of the reasons.

[CubsFanBudMan]

Does anyone remember what happened with the primetime Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? No matter how popular something is, you can't run it every night of the week.

Mark Cuban did. He referenced it in this very interview.

As I discussed in the "NFL breaking point" thread, I had to drop ESPN from my rotation because of too much NFL. It's far from a year-round sport, but because of its popularity -- in part due to the fact that it's a 16-day commitment, IMO --it gets shoved down our throats even out of season.

I don't want 24-7-365 NFL because I like other sports. Thankfully MLB Network, NBATV, etc. came along so I could see highlights of those sports rather than endless debate about the meaning of a no-show to an optional workout. Or a third-string QB. (Ahem... Tebow. Sorry. Where's the swear jar?)

Overexposure is a real thing.

[Gothamite]

The strength of the NFL over the past several years has been its relative scarcity. The weekly buildup was an important part, building anticipation and driving to those Sunday events that dominated both sports and television watching habits.

Overexposure is a very real danger here, diluting the league's impact by spreading it too thin.

[ScubaSteve]

It seems like something that they know us football fans will have to deal with though, the pandering to the casual fans.

I can't tell you how much i despise seeing the color pink everywhere throughout the entire month of Cctober. Please don't get me wrong: supporting breast cancer awareness is a great cause and if the NFL wants to have people rally behind that then I'm all for it. But c'mon, does it need to be EVERYWHERE on the field? The answer is no. And it looks SO bad. And the problem is that we know they're not flaunting it because they're raising all this money, they're flaunting it to sell pink merchandise. And it's been reported that a very small amount of that money goes to the research.

Its all this pandering to the casual community I'm talking about. The NFL thinks that if your girlfriend is walking by the TV when a pink game is on that she will be mesmorised like a cat and become an instant hardcore fan.

[illwauk]

I think the theory behind becoming 'burnt out of NFL football' because it's on every single day (Well, he really only named Thursday Saturday Sunday and Monday) doesn't make much sense. All the other sports are on everyday, every sportscenter, pretty much all the time. The NFL is only on 3 days a week now, and I really doubt they push into 4 with Saturday. Three isn't that much, to be honest.

Are any of those sports followed as often and as passionately as pro football? The NFL's main advantage is that it's a much smaller schedule than every other sport, and most games take place on a day when most people don't have to work. That once-a-week proposition turns every game into an event. To take that away is to kill the golden egg-laying goose.

EDIT: What Gothamite said.

[Gothamite]

Its all this pandering to the casual community I'm talking about. The NFL thinks that if your girlfriend is walking by the TV when a pink game is on that she will be mesmorised like a cat and become an instant hardcore fan.

I'm really not sure that's the case; I think the intent is more to sell the 1,000+ pink products available on the NFL's online store every October.

I also disagree that the league's strategy on the whole is "pandering to the casual community". Quite the opposite - it seems to me that the "NFL every night" strategy is aimed at the die-hards, the ones who can't get enough so the NFL will get them to tune in every Thursday and Friday and Saturday as religiously as they do on Sundays. They surely don't intend to cannibalize their Nielsen numbers, but replicate them wholesale across multiple evenings.