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Comment by jjaredsimpson | Hacker News Reader

I need to work and sleep and spend time with friends. TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash.

I can't even spend the attention required to watch TV most times. I find myself just leaving it on in the background and then realized that I've paused it because something was more interesting on my laptop. Sometimes it takes me hours just to get through one episode.

There is also piracy. I don't have cable but I still watched Walking Dead. Which I've also stopped watching. Live TV just seems so pointless. If a show is good I can just pick it up after like 3 seasons and binge it if I want.

Paying $80 a month for TV is just absurd. And paying for sports is even more ridiculous. I like the NBA, and occasionally the NFL during playoffs. But I'll never watch a game live which just spreads 35 minutes of content over 3 hours to maximize ad revenue.

TV had it's heyday, the idea that it isn't on a steady downward decline towards some new steady state is delusion. ESPN in its current form is done. The impact on athletes salaries should be interesting though.

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It's possible it's completely unrelated - but I wonder if the constant threats to move teams to different cities if people aren't* willing to fund billion dollar stadiums is related? I know for a lot of casual fans, that's a massive turnoff. You see teams making a ransom in profit year after year, but then they expect the public to fund them above and beyond. The whole thing just feels like it's gotten out of control.

That's completely ignoring what I can only assume will eventually be massive lawsuits around concussions for the NFL.

It's completely anecdotal, but so many of my friends are put off by blacked out games which make random games unavailable to watch. So not only do you spend a ridiculous amount of money for a sports subscription, but you don't even know if you'll even be able to watch your team! And when you do, it's a little bit of sports sprinkled in between tons of in-your-face advertising, with ads in between plays, ads on coach's heads, ads scrolling across the bottom of the screen, ads interrupting normal play, etc. It's ridiculous. And it's even more ridiculous that media companies are surprised.

Out of curiosity (having never watched sports), what causes these blackouts? Is it contacts with the service providers?

2015 and 2015 they suspended having blackouts. The NFL will re-evaluate the rule after going through the season. The blackout policy was instituted in the early 1970s when NFL teams relied primarily on ticket sales to generate revenue. The rule stated that if a game wasn't sold out 72 hours prior to kickoff, they would be blacked out in the local TV markets. It sucked. If your favorite team was bad that year, you ended up being blacked out as no one attended the game. Sure I was a fan of the Dolphins, but I am not going to spend $100+ to watch a 1-16 or 6-10 team some years. I would watch at home in the background.

>but so many of my friends are put off by blacked out games which make random games unavailable to watch.

It isn't random; it's an outdated approach to getting butts in seats. Generally, it will be the local team that is "blacked out" in its home market. The blame goes to the team ownership, not the networks. But I agree, it's stupid.

I definitely think we are at peak NFL. The head trauma is a big issue, but not because of lawsuits. The NFL has plenty of money and can pay whatever. The real problem is 10-20 years from now when parents have kept their kids out of football because of the head issue, and now you have the best athletes in other sports instead.

The NFL has also oversaturated the brand. It used to be Sunday games and then MNF. Each week was an event. TNF ruined the event aspect, and has put on really terrible games showing how thin the league has become. Then there are the games in other countries. For a sport like baseball or basketball 1 game in another country is not a big deal, but the NFL season is only 16 games and losing a home game is a huge deal for the fans, players, and competition aspect.

So yeah, I think all those things (and the stadium issue you mention) have added to up to pushing fans away.

The head trauma is what made me stop watching football. I used to watch 8 hours of football every Sunday (on Red Zone). At some point this off season, I began to think about what I was really watching. I also got the sense that the NFL was taking the fans for granted. The major rule changes every year really bugged me, especially when nothing was done (except trying to reduce the amount of returned kickoffs) to alleviate the concussion issue.

At some point I just felt like I didn't want to watch old dudes "own" young men while they tried to kill each other for America's entertainment. It started to feel like real life mandingo fighting (from Django Unchained) and I decided that I didn't want to be a part of enriching that.

Same with me. I'm disgusted that they did not do much about had trauma. I'm also disgusted that it is so difficult for me to watch games I want without paying a lot of money, even when they are in the past. A third think I'm disgusted with is that some of my favorite players will have a few bad games and then get cut from the team.

What could they do to alleviate head trauma without essentially neutering the game?

Get rid of most of the padding and headgear so the players don't feel like they have the ability to take such hard hits--because as far as their brains go, they don't have that ability.

I wonder what the game would look like if these changes were made. Would it become more like rugby, but with forward passing?

Head trauma is also becoming a big deal in rugby union now. It won't be long, in my opinion, before wearing of the padded scull cap headgear becomes mandatory.

I played the game in a serious social manner (every weekend during the season at a reasonably good amateur level) for 15-20 years (had a few seasons off to do other things) since I was 15. I've had an ACL reconstruction and one shoulder is a painful mess. Fortunately no obvious head issues so far.

I love the game and watch a lot of it, but when the time comes I'm not really sure I want my boy playing.

wearing of the padded scull cap headgear becomes mandatory.

Thanks for the personal perspective. Do you think this would lead to the same situation the NFL finds itself in now? People hitting harder in part because of the protection provided by the pads?

I don't follow NFL, but from what I do know the games are quite different which may result in different injury ratios.

In rugby, only the ball carrier may be tackled and there are rules against deliberate head high hits. Yet, with the speed, size and athleticism of moden players, the amount of head injuries are on the rise.

I think wearing the padded scull caps would make a big difference to accidental head trauma in rugby. Many of the top players already do.

Just convert over to sevens. It's more interesting per play, and if the matchup is a dud, golly you've just lost maybe 20 minutes.

3-4 hours for NFL? Ick. Only the best, most interesting games maybe approach that sort of time and commercial (aggravation) commitment. And that's setting aside head injuries.

IDK, can someone comment on how helmets have evolved recently?

I used to compete in and still watch a lot of downhill skiing. The technological advancements in helmets over the past ten years has been incredible, now we have MIPS foam and kevlar and carbon and in general stuff that's been engineered and crash tested to perfection. Not to mention helmets are now discarded after a single impact. How is it with NFL helmets?

It isn't the helmet that's the problem. As their ability to absorb shock has increased, the players hitting harder has gone up with it. And although a helmet can absorb a lot of shock, the twisting/turning of the head on impact is not something they can dampen, and those are the motions that cause brain trauma.

Keep in mind that the interior base of the braincase is a catastrophe of sharp bone, and that you're scraping something with the durability of jello across it every time there's an impact that has any lateral component, which is all of them.

Arm the quarterbacks with a 2 shot .22 derringer.

You get the strategy of knowing how many shots the QB has taken in the game, all sorts of new statistics can be compiled for the fans who like that, and you're more or less guaranteed to have one to four serious injuries per game.

The QB now has to figure out defensive and offensive aiming as well as ball management. Tackles and backers need to factor in taking a shot versus possible possession.

Not to mention that QBs get arrested during most games. There's going to be a lot more substitution.

Really, if you're going to talk about "neutering" the game by making it less dangerous to the players, then obviously it makes the game much more manly if you up the stakes this way.

http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?id=1488

We are definitely peak NFL for several reasons: 1. Head trauma. People watching now actively know about it and it turns some people off. Those who don't care about players getting injured, then gripe the game is being changed. So the NFL is caught in the middle of losing fans for putting out a rather barbaric sport of causing head trauma against those who think they are making the game worse. 2. Stadiums. Owners simply were greedy and pushed to far. This turned off various fans and groups. 3. Kids. A lot of parents don't want their kids playing. So that will have an impact not on the player pool, but those who will watch and live the sport later. 4. Time. Games are way to long. It's 3+ hours for 10 minutes of action. Seriously, Comcast edits all games and you can watch them a few days later. They take 8 to 10 minutes to watch all plays. You lose the anticipation, but still too many timeouts and stoppages. 5. Watching patterns. Many people, escpecially those under 30, don't watch tv for 3 hours in a row. They are doing multiple things. They want bite size content. NFL simply does not fit into that currently, unless you have the red zone package. That is the only way I can watch football now, unless my home team is playing (Dolphins). Even for the I watch flip back and forth and do other things. 6. Costs. It is ridiculously priced to go to a real game. Parking is $25 to $40. Tickets are $100 each for decent seats. Food is 4x what is actually costs. Just crazy. Plus I don't have a full day to kill, to drive, park, wait, and watch the game. Easier to turn on at home. Unless it's a big game or playoffs, live NFL is not worth it at all.

Also with fewer and fewer children getting hooked the NFL week continue to delayed.

Their marketing campaign was to go after children like the tobacco industry.[1] With head trauma coming to the forefront the NFL is going to the back of priorities.

[1] http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/nfl-football-...

Huff is not really a credible source

Sacramento just got a $$$ stadium. City used it as an excuse to significantly jack up the parking prices, $28 for an evening to pay for the stadium. Of course now the restaurants are seeing a drop in business because not many want to pay $28 to park.

Spending so much on stadiums seems insane. In Pittsburgh the Steelers and Pirates lobbied for and got seperate stadiums, despite minimal overlap in seasons.

IIRC, Pittsburgh voted down the stadium several times, but then they pulled some political shenanigans to shove it through.

The problem isn't that the Steelers and Pirates should have separate stadiums. That's fine. The problem is that the stadiums should pay for themselves.

If a stadium isn't a good enough business proposition to get funded privately, it shouldn't get funded, period.

> If a stadium isn't a good enough business proposition to get funded privately, it shouldn't get funded, period.

Yeah. In Munich, for example, the Allianz Arena stadium was built for 340M €, which were brought up by FC Bayern and TSV 1860, in cooperation with Allianz insurance which sponsored the name. FC Bayern paid off the entire debt two years ago (after 9.5 years, it was projected to take 25 years to pay off the debt).

But I'm not totally against public partial funding/investment - especially in the lower leagues the pitch usually is open to all kinds of sport clubs as well as nearby schools, so it makes sense to fund at least part of the costs via public channels as long as the public gets some value back beyond interest payments. (Anecdata: I'm living across the pitch my former school still uses. It's weird to see lots of the teachers random on the street...)

Sacramento has a ton of city owned parking garages near the new arena which are typically empty in the evening. The city contributed $212 million to the arena based on future increased parking revenue generated from events at the arena.

I've been to several events this year at the Golden1 Center and have spent no more than $10 on parking for the evening. The city did use this as an excuse to increase meter rates and extend hours, but it's only $0.50/hr more.

Right on all points. You touched on it with your laptop comment, but there are also so many other avenues for couch entertainment. There are traditional shows on services like Netflix, but then there is also Twitch, YouTube, etc... that have compelling background content with little to no commercials.

Speaking of commercials, this is what is really killing TV. We have more things competing for our time than ever before, and commercials are the first thing to go. In addition to the time wasting, people also start doing the math. $10/month for Netflix commercial free content or cable $80-$100/month for commercial laden content.

BTW, AMC and TWD are one of the worst offenders with commercial time vs. show time.

You said something very important here, commercials are really a no-go. I pay $10/mo not to see them on youtube and especially not to be seen by my kids. Just requests for stupid toys are worth $10.

I saw that Star Wars: The Force Awakens was on cable TV the other day while flipping through the guide. I almost clicked on it, but then I saw the run time - 3h40m. It is a 2h15m movie. There is no way I'm sitting through that many commercials.

>There are traditional shows on services like Netflix, but then there is also Twitch, YouTube, etc.

This article is about ESPN, which is a live sports network. Cutting the cord is difficult for a sports fan. None of the services you mention are a replacement (yet).

>TV just isn't a priority because the vast majority of it is pure trash.

>TV had it's heyday

I can tell you don't watch much TV. It's never been better. We're in a golden age of TV, it's just not on ESPN. There have recently been a lot of extremely high quality, hour long dramas, which basically amount to a movie every week. Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, The Wire, arguably Westworld, to name a few.

All of those programs are available on demand on the internet. When people talk about TV in this context they are talking about cable not the content.

The parent comment was discussing the quality of the content.

True. And it's easier to watch these on the internet (legally or illegally) than on "TV".

Whether you watch it on TV or pay HBO (or Netflix or whoever) to stream it they're still TV shows, produced by TV networks. It's the format, not the delivery that matters. The parent comment was obviously about the quality of the content. Nobody cares whether it comes over coax or TCP.

The presence or absence of commercials is a huge element in the "format". It's possible to never see commercials online -- which isn't possible on TV. Also, Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority".

>Shows of this quality are the vast minority, not the "vast majority".

There are higher quality TV shows than ever before. To say TV "had its heyday" is outrageous. TV, not movies, is where the magic is happening these days.

I know people who have paid for HBO accounts to watch shows as soon as they come out (instead of pirating them or binging them a few years later), ditto for cable subs and commercials. The average consumer is not bothered by this stuff IME.

The on demand nature of modern TV show delivery has allowed for a huge shift to serialized storytelling. Previously, there was a real drive for standalone episodes as there was significant money to be made by syndicating shows post their original air date. And, of course the conventional wisdom of "if someone misses an episode they'll quit watching".

Those are great, but those are all HBO, if I recall, which is decidedly not TV in my opinion (I have HBO Now).

You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash or available somewhere else without obnoxious ads (loudness mitigation is a lie) and cheaper.

>those are all HBO

>You'd be hard pressed to find something on live cable television that isn't trash

Breaking Bad and Mad Men were both on AMC.

Ah, my mistake. I could have sworn I saw them listed on HBO.

While this might disprove my statement, I don't think it's entirely without merit, still.

Well, I think Breaking Bad is also on Netflix.

If you're picking up Breaking Bad right now, you'd watch it on Netflix. The only reason you'd watch it on TV is if you're catching it the first time it's airing. I only joined on the last season so I don't have much context, but everyone I knew in college would wait for it to air and immediately torrent the commercial-free episode. For something huge like the ending I know some people that hosted small viewing parties to watch it live, but many were fine with waiting.

Also, Breaking Bad ended in 2013, and Mad Men in 2015. That list only has two entries. Maybe not literally everything on live cable TV is trash, but I think it highlights that there's a clear decline.

The obvious example is The Americans, and... nothing else comes to mind. Everything else worth watching is created by Netflix or HBO (or maybe Amazon).

I have a hard time agreeing that these new series fall under the category of Television. TV _is_ explicitly the format in which the content is delivered (device and delivery). It used to be broadcast live, whether over the air or by cable, and those formats required payment for said delivery.

Now actual televisions aren't necessarily part of the equation. Plenty of people are watching these series on their phones and laptops and tablets, and sometimes televisions, but not in the way they used to be delivered to said screens.

I agree that we're in something of a golden age for episodic story-telling. I agree that this story-telling was born from broadcast television. I don't agree that it, in its current incantation, can be plainly categorized as "TV".

In the same way that a mobile device is no longer a telephone, though we may still call it one from time to time, and a TV remote is no longer a "clicker", no matter how many times my parents call it one.

Names of formats have a way of sticking around. The novel hasn't been new for a long time. Films are distributed with disks, and solid state disk drives have neither disks nor drives.

Language moves on. We already have a retronym[1] called "broadcast television" that incorporates what you're describing, while the definition of television will probably change with our devices.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retronym

While I've been a huge fan of this 'golden age of TV', I can't help but wonder to which degree I'm fooling myself by spending hours on 'extremely high quality' television that ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way.

The Wire felt like it actually taught me something and made me think about society and my role in it. But to what extent are Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Game of Thrones, and Westworld basically same as daytime soap operas dressed up so they're palatable to 'discerning' consumers?

I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that, but I do find that many people, myself included, justify their TV habits by arguing that we're watching 'quality' TV instead of the usual daytime garbage.

(I've been reading Infinite Jest and recently read Wallace' "E Unibus Pluram"[1], so this has been on my mind.)

[1]: https://jsomers.net/DFW_TV.pdf

Does something have to have a pecuniary reward to be worthwhile? Stories have been told since the beginning of humanity, and I'm sorry if you see them as a waste of time.

>> "ultimately still is primarily entertainment and doesn't 'improve' my life in any real way."

How is entertaining you not improving your life?

I love getting junk food every once in a while. It 'improves' my life because I enjoy it. Eating a lot of it regularly would not.

I'm not judging anyone and I'm by no means saying that it's easy to discern how 'junk' a form of entertainment is. I'm just saying that I started wondering whether this quality food I'm having a lot of might just be cleverly dressed up junk food. Specifically in regards to 'quality' shows like GoT and Westworld.

I really don't mean that in a pretentious way. I watch stuff that most people would probably consider junk, so that would be hypocritical of me.

A long time ago I came to the conclusion :

One day I will be old and unoccupied, work will be behind me, my capacity to produce will be reduced, I will be more inclined to consume. If TV programmes and films of today are any good they will still be around. I shall watch them then.

You know, this is exactly what my Dad did. He's in his late 80's now, and retired back in '92. He job kept him busy 24/7 for most of his career, and he never had the time to watch TV, when there were so many other, more important things to do.

Nowadays, he uses my Netflix account waaaay more than I do. And he's catching up on decades of shows, and quite enjoying himself. He just finished Season 3 of ST:TNG. It's been fun talking to him about episodes I watched back in the day, too.

Many soaps could probably be radio programs. They're visually simple and the stories are told in a straightforward way. Ditto for many sitcoms, which I generally enjoy, so this isn't as harsh an indictment as it sounds.

TV and movies are visual mediums, you can tell stories in more interesting ways. People might flatter themselves a little bit but that's not why these shows are popular IMHO.

Of those five you listed, three are no longer running.

>And paying for sports is even more ridiculous.

Is it a problem that some of us like sports? I bet you have a "ridiculous" hobby or two that's a complete waste of money.

And I love the mentality of "TV is trash and I can hardly stand it...but I'll steal it anyway."

It's more like TV is a barrel of excrement, with few shiny diamonds floating somewhere in there. You can dig through the excrement to get at them, but then there's this Bay of Pirates nearby, and they give away those same diamonds without fecal matter...

Yeah, over the past 10 years or so I've swtiched entirely to DVD sets and on-demand streaming. It's not about lowering the bill, it's that the only real edge TV had -- the only reason to put up with all the ads and scheduling bullshit -- was the size of the library. Now that TV-on-DVD and Hulu have gotten big, that's not a problem anymore.

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