I think of football as one of the killer apps for tv. Baseball is one for radio: baseball is almost always better over radio; there’s lots of space to do something else at the pace of most baseball games.
Football is actually really really weird for a spectator sport and, I think, is generally presented very poorly. 80% of the game is deciphering opposing formations to determine what they each are predicting the opposing formation is about to try to do.
Baseball - I like it in lots of forms, too. But I think a good radio announcer can get you most of the fun out of a critical at bat narrating.
It feels like what we’re shown on tv is a very narrow slice of what’s going on. We see the ball moving down the field but have no idea what the coach or quarterback is doing. Somehow it’s still an incredible watch though.
No idea if it's true or not
The commentators, particularly for the Aus/England Ashes series were always better with the likes of Agnew and the now retired Blofeld providing much better commentary.
And just like killer apps of other technologies there were supplementary instruction books: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/a/chris-schenkel/...
Seems like it plays well with vertical video orientation too.
football as a televised spectator sport? trending down. it's not dead, but where growth is measured, it is not good. the cultural thing this guy is talking about in the article, it's going away. fewer and fewer people every year value the aesthetic experience he is describing.
TV ownership? trending down. they've never been cheaper for a reason. trend for TV production since peak TV? down.
football as a gambling product? up. okay, do you see what i mean by bad growth? football mediated as betting stats on apps? up. draftkings, polymarket, ESPN fantasy app ARPPU? up. ESPN streaming app ARPU? down. comcast? hated, down, everyone is cheering for it to go down. do you see?
there is no way to talk about specific instances of football (and stadium sports') cultural weaknesses without sounding really cringe. maybe just, "who cares?"
Do you have sales or survey data to support this claim? I’m willing to believe individual households might be less likely to purchase TVs, but my understanding is that manufacturers are producing as many or even more screens than ever, though that might be for commercial or business use. Incidentally, it’s efficiency from this scale that allows manufacturers to sell televisions at such low prices, not a lack of demand.
Household
Ownership
Rate 2011 2020 2023
-------------------------------------
TV Set ~99% [3] 96% [3] 88% [1]
Smartphone 35% [2] 85% [2] 90% [1]
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/mobile/
[3] https://www.nielsen.com/insights/2020/nielsen-estimates-121-...
Entity 2016 Rev 2024 Rev Nominal Real (Adj)
---------------------------------------------------------
Netflix $8.8B [5] $39.0B [6] +341% +229%
NBA $6.5B [3] $11.3B [4] +74% +30%
NFL $14.0B [1] $23.0B [2] +64% +22%
Inflation --- --- +34% [7] 0%
another POV: other people do a better job at making NFL content than the NFL does, which is what you are saying your son is consuming. and listen, honestly, ask him if he or his friends bet on football...
[1] https://www.footballscoop.com/news/report-nfl-rakes-14-billi...
[2] https://www.sportspro.com/news/nfl-revenue-2024-financial-ye...
[3] https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Journal/Issues/2016/10...
[4] https://www.sportsvalue.com.br/en/nba-teams-surpassed-us-11-...
[5] https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/NFLX/netflix/reven...
[6] https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nasdaq/nflx/revenue
My gut feel is that people are actually spending a lot fewer hours watching NFL games.
Even when I have been at parties where an NFL game was on, the younger crowd were diddling with their phones--generally playing games. No judgment, it's not like phone games are inferior to vegetating in front of the boob tube--but I suspect that while an NFL game may be "on", it's not really the "focus" anymore.
AFAIC, NFL football is almost always the top 99 out of 100 most viewed television programs in the US every year. The Oscars usually manage to claw onto the list and in election years a couple presidential debates make it, displacing a few regular season games. Since your claim conflicts with my current understanding, I just had AI do a quick search of recent credible sources. Here's the summary:
> "The claim that football (American football/NFL) as a televised spectator sport is trending down is not true based on recent data.
>Regular season NFL viewership saw a minor dip of about 2.2% in 2024 (averaging 17.5 million per game), but rebounded strongly in 2025 with significant gains—averaging around 18.7 million viewers per game (up 10% from the prior season in some reports, marking the highest in 36 years or second-highest on record when including updated measurement methods like Nielsen's Big Data + out-of-home viewing). Networks like CBS, Fox, NBC, and Amazon all reported year-over-year increases, with streaming platforms showing particularly strong growth.
> Super Bowl audiences continue setting records: Super Bowl LIX (2025) averaged 127.7 million viewers (up 3% from the previous year), marking consecutive record highs. Playoff games, including wild-card and divisional rounds, also showed double-digit increases in multiple cases. While some earlier seasons had slight declines (often tied to factors like election years or measurement changes), the overall trend since 2024-2025 has been upward, reinforcing the NFL's position as the dominant U.S. televised sport."
Your impression may arise from shifting measurement platform data due to increasing out-of-home, mobile, streaming, DVR, etc viewership. Just comparing traditional old-school Nielsen in-home diary data alone hasn't been accurate for over a decade. Even if we discount recent cross-platform measurement data, the overwhelming dominance of NFL football is also well supported by the audited financial reports of what broadcasters and streamers pay the NFL and further by what advertisers pay for slots. The sheer money being paid dwarfs all other sports and types of television programming (news, drama, comedy, etc). The recent dramatic growth of legalized sports gambling in the US will likely push NFL viewership across all platforms and formats even higher.
the oscars audience is shrinking
all TV broadcast is growing like 1/10th the rate as Netflix did in the past decade. That's my benchmark.
Yes, but NFL viewership is growing.
> all TV broadcast is growing like 1/10th the rate as Netflix did in the past decade.
Okay, but that undermines your earlier point. The NFL isn't tied to or limited by 'broadcast television'. NFL football is simply 'video content', but not just any video content, it's the hottest video content of all time - no matter how its distributed. Streaming is now the fastest growing distribution channel for video content, so it's also the fastest growing channel for live football video content. Netflix is paying big bucks to stream some live NFL games - with plans to increase next year. And Amazon Prime is already a major 'network' for NFL with Thursday Night Football. Industry analysts report NFL football is by far the single most expensive content/hr for Netflix and Prime and is a major loss leader for both. They're paying the NFL far more than the broadcast rights are worth as a way to 'buy' more of the subscriber growth you find so impressive. Netflix (and Amazon Prime) aren't 'beating' NFL football, they've surrendered and are joining them (at a loss).
Disney Plus tried to bid on NFL streaming rights but NFL is so expensive it's a hugely risky way for streamers to buy viewers, so Disney dropped out and recently did a deal for exclusive US live streaming rights for a much smaller sport than NFL - F1 racing. Bottom line: live sports is the biggest, most consistent driver of video content viewership - and always has been. NFL is by far the biggest video content sport - and always has been. It's been true for over 50 years, from traditional over-the-air broadcast, cable television (in the 80s NFL rights made ESPN the most valuable cable channel), satellite (in the 90s out-of-market NFL games were the largest driver of DirectTV & Dish growth) and now it's a key growth vector for streamers.
Streaming isn't a threat to the NFL, it's the NFL's biggest growth channel. In fact, the real limit on the NFL's future growth isn't distribution at all. It's already so dominant in the U.S, it has no competition close enough to be relevant. The NFL's only remaining limit is, quite literally, the size of the U.S. population. That's why the NFL's been investing huge sums trying to establish NFL football elsewhere in the world. It's their single biggest growth priority - because they're already the absolute, undisputed king of broadcast, cable, satellite and streaming in the U.S.
As someone who's been analyzing video content industry trends for a few decades now, I just want to let you know you've reached some incomplete or misleading conclusions based a variety of category errors and assumptions. Traditional living room televisions are just one way of consuming video content. And "over-the-air broadcast" is just one way of distributing video content. Assuming broadcast television viewership shrinking also means less video is being created and consumed is like assuming music consumption is down because CD sales are down or the printed word is dying because fax machine sales are down.
The reality is quite the opposite. Video content creation, distribution and consumption are all growing at very high rates and have been for a long time. The industry puts a lot of effort into reproducible, audited measurement and has developed deep understanding of how viewership has shifted and multiplied across video consumption platforms, consumption modes, and distribution channels - ranging from streaming long-form to social snacking. While it's true that broadcast television is shrinking and traditional living room TV sales are down, far more video content is being created, distributed and consumed today than ever before, and not by a little - the growth trends are explosive regardless of how we count: viewers, views, hours, titles, revenue or reach. All the metrics measured across the entire video content lifecycle reflect the same incredible growth.
I suggest you focus on the myriad ways video content can be bad, is getting worse or has negative effects on kids, culture or human progress. But arguing video isn't growing is neither accurate nor necessary to support your point.