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Comment by rhino369 | Hacker News Reader

I think it's a bad assumption to think the NFL will demand more money when ratings and subscriptions are down.

ESPN just has to be the highest bidder. Someone has got to air the games.

>> Someone has got to air the games.

Really? Football has been played without network coverage. I could see a future whereby teams handled their own streaming, or where the NFL did it all through NFL.com. The days of "air" are quickly coming to an end. I'm a little surprised that Netflix, Google or even FB aren't bidding.

And if NFL owners want more people into the stadiums, curtailing broadcast coverage has been the traditional means. Ticket prices are already so high that it isn't inconceivable that they take it to the next level and market a game like a rock concert: be in the room or miss out.

Amazon currently streams Thursday Night Football

So does Twitter I believe....

  I could see a future whereby teams handled their own streaming

NFL's financial viability depends on the combined, pooled TV revenues. If each team is reduced to parceling out its own TV rights, smaller-market teams simply won't survive. You would see revenue disparities worse than in baseball right now (compare the Dodgers' TV contract with that of the A's or Brewers or DBacks... or, before this season, Houston).

> Someone has got to air the games.

Does someone? Sure, professional football has been very popular for many decades, but there's nothing about the order of the universe which states that it will remain so forever. We don't have chariot races, or gladiators, or bear-baiting — maybe someday we won't have professional football either.

The NFL's life expectancy is now less than 20 years. Young people aren't playing the game, because their parents don't want their brains to get all smashed up. Active participation in tackle football among teenagers fell from 9% to 7% in just 5 years from 2011-2016. The talent pool will dry up. The game will be less interesting. The fan base will die off.

I don't think playing the game is very important in the US. If playing the game as a youth affected your viewing habits as an adult then soccer should be the most popular sport in the US. Basketball should far eclipse football. As long as they have enough younger players to sustain they should be fine.

Its more about the availability of gladiators than the sports history of people in the stands.

What happens if the highest bidder can't pay the NFL enough to make it worthwhile?

I keep seeing pictures of half-empty stands behind kneeling football players, and ultimately if the NFL destroys its value by alienating too many fans with politics, there's no reason the entire business won't or shouldn't collapse.

Actually if they are smart the NFL capitalises on the current political climate.

Think about it: an NFL team sponsored by the alt right vs. one funded by Ben&Jerry's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nika_riots

There would have to be a pretty massive drop off for that to be a problem. The biggest costs are player/staff salaries and stadiums.

They can just keep the salary cap low and stop paying for new stadiums.

Umm no. NFL took in 15 Billion in 2015, 2/3 of the revenue came from TV, new stadiums over the last 20 years have totaled only $15 Billion of which almost half was financed by tax payers[0].

NFL will not weather well a continued hit to ratings, which were down 8% last year and dropping again this year

[0]https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/19smEPxvpHQE3pByhDDPb...

curious - are there any reports/#'s out there that indicate attendance is lower than normal? +correlation w/ kneeling players?

Nope.

I've yet to find any. If you look at attendance for the last decade there seems to be no indication that it is actually declining.

The vast majority of NFL tickets are sold before the start of the season so teams are still claiming sellouts, which while technically correct, gives an impression that isn't reflected in actual people in the seats. I'm not sure how the NFL counts attendance but in NCAA football each school decides on what methodology to use. Some don't count hotdog vendors, some count every person inside the stadium, some just estimate the crowd without bothering with an actual count. It wouldn't surprise me if some pro teams massaged their numbers to appear larger than the actual number of fans who show up.

> It wouldn't surprise me if some pro teams massaged their numbers to appear larger than the actual number of fans who show up.

Without any substantiating evidence the opposite wouldn't surprise me either.

Please provide backing evidence that demonstrates the counts are maliciously inflated, at an increased rate, which masks lower turnout.

I have no evidence that if wouldn't surprise me other than actually writing out that it wouldn't surprise me. You'll simply have to take my word that I wouldn't be surprised.

You can look at the raw stats yourself here[0].

I did some quick calculation here, and it looks like attendance is not lower, in fact, it's slightly higher. 2016 average attendance was 66,586, while this year's average attendance so far is 68,925.

(This doesn't account for lower-attended games towards the end of the season for poor-performing teams; end of the season games often don't sell out for such teams, and these stats may be skewed because we haven't reached the end of the season yet. If I were to guess, by year's end attendance will be slightly lower for 2017.)

What is down is ratings. That is well-documented[1].

[0]: http://www.espn.com/nfl/attendance/_/year/2016

[1]: http://money.cnn.com/2017/09/20/media/nfl-tv-ratings-week-2/...

Those official attendance figures count tickets issued, not how many fans actually go through the turnstiles. (Teams refuse to release those counts to the public).

You can see massive amounts of empty seats in 4 or 5 NFL stadiums right now. Some cities have extremely loyal fan bases regardless of record (e.g. Green Bay, Pittsburgh), but you can see many seats going completely unsold in Levi's Stadium (49ers).

In fact, Pittsburgh was the reference standard that the 49ers (for one) used as a comparison in selling licenses for their building ("see how WELL those licenses are selling! Don't miss out!").

Most stadium deals NFL teams have made over the past decade gives the team revenue from all events in the stadium instead just the NFL games. Owners who have been able to get cities and states to agree to these deals can insert other events on the days the team would have played should the sport collapse. The team as a legal entity would live on as an entertainment services provider. Even if the replacement event isn't as popular as the NFL once was, it along with all the other events hosted at the stadium likely would keep a profit stream flowing to the team owner.

Unlike indoor arenas, it doesn't look like this is much of a revenue stream for most football stadiums. For instance, I checked Arrowhead Stadium (Chiefs) has 2 non-football events scheduled in the next year. Heinz Field (Steelers) has 1. Despite being in Nashville, Nissan Stadium (Titans) has 3.

I'm always a little shocked when people admit outrage over kneeling players but don't seem at all concerned that the sport endangers the players' wellbeing. What do you think contributes to this empathy gap?

In the case of many, many people I have met in the Midwest: the answer is racism. These people for some reason can't seem to grasp the simple fact that players are protesting the fact that black people are being shot and killed for either petty crimes or no crimes at all. You certainly don't have to agree with their protest, but not being able to empathize reflects much poorly on you than it does them.

Here we have a glaring example of the issue. You use feelings instead of data to make your point, the problem is your anecdotal assertions are not backed up by reality. 90% of those killed by police were armed.

So far this year 15 African Americans have been killed while unarmed to 21 White Americans and the numbers are similar for the previous years where data is available

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

[ Edited Below Rate Limited Reply ]

It is about Ratios WillyOnWheels except police aren't killing a bunch of people for no apparent reason, so ratios will never be one to one based on racial data alone.

More than 90% of police homicide victims were armed, the vast majority of them were during the commission of a crime.

Do we want to go over violent crime stats and how that relates to the likelihood you will be killed by police.

It is your half-assed attempt to apply normative statistics to a non-normative issue that shines a light upon your ignorance and all who parrot the same statement without ever delving into the data

Of course the numbers are irrefutable, so down vote away

It's about ratios.

There are about 220 million White Americans. Your data claims 392 White Americans have been killed police in 2017 so far.

There are about 35 million Black Americans. Your data claims 190 Black Americans have been killed by police in 2017 so far.

If Black Americans were killed by police hypothetically at the same rate as White Americans, 62 Black Americans would be dead.

Do you see the huge disparity there?

What you analysis fails to factor in is the number of crimes committed by each. In that regard blacks commit far more crimes then whites.

Or Blacks get charged far more than whites, or that Blacks are policed more heavily, or that it has to do with poverty more than skin color, etc.

The issue is that the data can't be conclusive unless you have an issue where you took two groups of people, gave them the same economic starting point, gave them the same systemic disadvantage, same opportunities and then could make a determination as to whether or not it has anything to do with culture.

Or you could easily look into the fact that economically there is a long history of repressing people of color and that systemic collection of repressions them still exist leading to the exact outcome expected, but still blame those people for "not picking themselves up by their bootstraps". It's as though you haven't seen Trading Places.

It seems pretty consistent with murder victim data. Even though Chicago is 32% black and 43% white, the vast vast majority of murder victims are black and occur in mostly black neighborhoods. I would think that police interactions with crime would follow this trend too.

https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/2017-chicago-murders

IMO, Money. People see kneeling as overpaid players throwing tantrums. They see the brain issues as the risk they take for being paid a lot.

It might have something to do with the fact that only 6% of Police Shootings involved an unarmed individual, and every year more white people are killed by police than African Americans. People would be more empathetic to the players supposed grievance if statistics backed them up

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/police-shoo...

This doesn't actually address my question. Kneeling, right or wrong, is a small expression of speech. CTEs endanger all players. The priorities here should be apparent.

But the players aren't kneeling for CTE, they're kneeling for a supposed grievance which is not reflected in statistical reality. I don't think anyone understands your question, it's more like an uniformed statement with a question mark at the end

Empathy is a privilege of the wealthy. NFL is primarily consumed by people working three shifts desperately struggling to keep their life together.

I cannot fault people on the bottom not being particularly concerned about someone making millions. As a matter of fact lots of NFL players see their sport as a way out of the trailer park. Do you think the NFL players are stupid?

Let us have some empathy for the people who live in the underclass of society.

As for not paying the NFL enough to make it worthwhile:

Someone will pick up the rights to show the games, or the league will offer their own service, or the games won't be played on Mondays/Thursdays and will go back to just being a Sunday sport.

Regarding losing their audience and destroying their value:

I stopped following the NFL not because of politics (the kneeling thing hadn't yet started), but because their product was no longer worth my time. Thirty+ years as a fan, watching nearly every single game the local team played and I turned it off a couple years ago. It should not take 3+ hours for 60 minutes of "play", the bulk of which involves no action. It became so overloaded with commercials that it hit the point I was no longer interested. For a short while there was hope, they had the "game in 60" replays on the NFL network. That could have been amazing. Unfortunately, they screwed that up too, showing "all the action" in the first half (good!), then a shortened version of the halftime show (why?), then "all the action" in the third quarter (good!), and then they'd jump to the end of the fourth quarter (wtf?). Why did we need a halftime show when the whole thing a) is being condensed down to an hour, b) is a replay, and c) they sacrifice showing comebacks in order to bring us talking heads?

I think they've been losing their audience for a while; the politics is just the latest (and possibly biggest) factor in their decline. If they turn things around, great. If not, I won't feel sorry for them.

I completely agree with you on the commercial part, it has gotten ridiculous. If it was not for the NFL Red Zone channel, I think I would have given up also.

> I think they've been losing their audience for a while; the politics is just the latest (and possibly biggest) factor in their decline

Yeah, politics has been an issue, but you are correct, this isn't their first time they've offended viewers. Some people are ticked about the money grab around stadiums, the rule change to protect the QB, the concussion coverup, the various sex scandals locally (e.g. Vikings boat trip), wife beating, and (a really big factor) cannot afford to go to the games anymore. There has been a long line of things that are whittling away the fans. Never mind the problem of replacing fans who died with new young fans when entertainment options are vast.

NFL is not the only sport having problems. They are just the biggest in the US, and are showing the largest number loss. The general decline of ESPN, with all of the reasons to stop watching them, is also a factor. If you don't go home and watch Sports Center then maybe you won't be fired up for the NFL either.

At the end of the day, every decision is going to offend someone, just make sure the offended don't outnumber the people you attract to the sport.

The NFL has struggled finding a good home for Thursday Night Football. MNF could easily turn into another network wandering nomad.

Ah so that's why Amazon Prime was able to land TNF.

Is that true? My impression was always that it was a valuable enough property that lots of companies wanted in on the action, but I admit that's not grounded in sources.

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