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The Nfl Ratings thread

Also what's with the half a commercial where they have half the screened filled with a commercial while the other half shows a ref looking at a baby monitor on some other guy's chest.
 
I still watch it. It makes me say that some don't stand for the national anthem but I also understand it is their right. I don't boycott **** because I don't agree with ones point of view or their belief. Steeler football has been apart of my life as long as I can remember. The only thing I wish would change would be to let the defenses play defense.
 
Exactly! Big plays you expect to be called back for holding. Every incompletion you expect PI/def holding/illegal contact. Every big hit you expect a personal foul. And not only do we expect it as fans, but the players get up and rant and rave for the flag themselves. It absolutely sucks the fun out of it, you are 100% right. You can't just enjoy the excitement of the game, because you're just waiting for the flag. If the NFL can make the product on the field look like major college football except with NFL caliber players and coaches, it will be the absolute best thing going. But as it is now? Absolutely horrific. Goodell might have made the game astronomically more popular than before so he's popular with owners. But he's ruined the actual game.

Ding Ding Ding we gotta winner!

Football is becoming boring plain and simple. Points and fantasy might have artificially kept this sport alive the last few years but a lot of fantasy football people don't both watching the game just the stat line or redzone which has almost no commercials and always has action and high lights. Skip all the BS and get the action. I said it in a different thread I feel an XFL or USFL with less penalties, less commercials, and more football could really compete with the NFL and maybe overtake it. I mean I saw a ******* safe place tent for NFL players. I almost puked but I swear to god they have a tent where men can go and tell the Doctor how the other bad man hurt them. WTF!
 
As people continue to get most of their TV on demand or DVR or without commercials, people are growing much less tolerant of live TV with the amount of interruptions/commercials the NFL expects us to sit through. The two side of the TV spectrum are growing wider apart and any traditional TV setup with traditional commercial interruptions is going to really suffer.

I mean, even regular prime-time shows (which I rarely if ever watch), my wife DVR's everything and then fast forwards through the commercials. I just don't know anyone that watches anything live.

Now I have no idea how that effects ratings. I thought the NFL TV maps for this past weekend were ****** up as well. I mean, I was in the Philadelphia market and no Steelers and no Baltimore (both which would draw ratings at 1PM) because the Eagles are on at the same time. So the NFL, on OPENING DAY WEEKEND, had ******* one game on at 1PM in one of the top-5 TV markets in the country. Not sure that sounds like a good way to get ratings. The game they put on instead of Baltimore or Pittsburgh on CBS? They had to run the late game at 4PM of Indianpolis vs. LA Rams. I mean, who the **** wants to watch the Colts and the Rams with Tolzien vs. Jared Goff?

They have to do a better job of marketing the right games to the right people and quit playing to this idea Football is still "regionally" dominated by the "home teams". There has been too much relocation and fan migration for that to apply anymore. If they want ratings, make sure your teams that draw ratings are on in the biggest markets.
 
All good points. I also think people are tired of the Patriots...or any dynastic team. What ever happened to the promise of parity? So many team fans feel they really have no dog in the fight year after year.
 
All good points. I also think people are tired of the Patriots...or any dynastic team. What ever happened to the promise of parity? So many team fans feel they really have no dog in the fight year after year.

It's better than baseball still. I watched one MLB and that was at target field because a few friends talked me into. Game was boring as **** though. But it's the dodgers, yankees, giants, blah blah every freaking year.
 
As people continue to get most of their TV on demand or DVR or without commercials, people are growing much less tolerant of live TV with the amount of interruptions/commercials the NFL expects us to sit through. The two side of the TV spectrum are growing wider apart and any traditional TV setup with traditional commercial interruptions is going to really suffer.

I mean, even regular prime-time shows (which I rarely if ever watch), my wife DVR's everything and then fast forwards through the commercials. I just don't know anyone that watches anything live.

Now I have no idea how that effects ratings. I thought the NFL TV maps for this past weekend were ****** up as well. I mean, I was in the Philadelphia market and no Steelers and no Baltimore (both which would draw ratings at 1PM) because the Eagles are on at the same time. So the NFL, on OPENING DAY WEEKEND, had ******* one game on at 1PM in one of the top-5 TV markets in the country. Not sure that sounds like a good way to get ratings. The game they put on instead of Baltimore or Pittsburgh on CBS? They had to run the late game at 4PM of Indianpolis vs. LA Rams. I mean, who the **** wants to watch the Colts and the Rams with Tolzien vs. Jared Goff?

They have to do a better job of marketing the right games to the right people and quit playing to this idea Football is still "regionally" dominated by the "home teams". There has been too much relocation and fan migration for that to apply anymore. If they want ratings, make sure your teams that draw ratings are on in the biggest markets.

Ain't that the damn truth. Especially if they want "fantasy football" to be the thing, increasing numbers of people don't want to just sit and watch the same game . Hell, I'm a huge Steelers fan and tend to only want to watch the Steelers myself. But because I love football, you best believe I'm sitting there flipping back and forth to the other games too just for fun. Find a way to make out-of-market games more accessible. And that goes for every sport.
 
One thing that i noticed this weeked. When i watch the NFL, i now expect a flag on nearly every play. I don't even get excited for a big play. My eyes immediately go to the score graphic to see if the yellow flag is lit. Then if it's not lit within a few seconds, only then did that play happen. That sucks out all the joy.

This ^^^

The endless stream of penalties takes all the joy out of the game. Penalties interrupt the rhythm and flow of the offense, bog down drives, force more punts ... and more commercials. Hey, NFL likes commercials, which = money for the league and teams.

What do you want to bet we would see half the number of penalties if flags eliminated commercial breaks rather than created them? So my first recommendation - don't flag unless the penalty is clear and affected the play. Some dude brushing the back of a jersey for 1/10th of a second 20 yards from the play should not result in a penalty.

Call holding evenly and legitimately. The absolute, undeniable fact is that holding used to be called most often on pass plays since offensive lineman deal with stunts, spin moves, a QB moving in the pocket, etc., but now holding penalties are called, I would estimate, 80% of the time on running plays. That weighs further against the running game, since passing teams can have OL'man tackle defenders with no flag, while running teams have 2-3 drives per game stalled due to a holding penalty.

So clean up the calls on holding. Call holding where the blocker is along side or behind the defensive player and yet impedes his progress. Stop calling holding on the plays where the offensive lineman simply engulfs and overpowers the defender. Seriously, it's holding because the defender went to the ground, i.e., he was abused on the play? Stop calling holding on offensive players in open space where the blocker has an excellent block and the defender simply winds up spinning and falling trying to get away.

Also, change the rule on contact with receivers. Move it from 5 yards within the LOS to 10 yards. Give defenders a chance to disrupt crossing routes, since they can no longer do so by hammering the receivers.

Change the play clock to 40 seconds. Teams will learn to hustle the hell up and get out of the huddle. Well, most teams. Remove 5 seconds per play x 125 plays per game = 625 seconds, or nearly 10 1/2 minutes per game. Games take less time, pace of play is increased, and along with a slowdown on the endless flags, games once again have a flow, and a back-and-forth.
 
1. Oversaturation. There are too many days with games, with the Thursday night games being the main culprit. With so many windows with games, I don't care as much if I miss one because it's on another day. It's the same thing with college where I only watch Saturday games.

2. Oversaturation of coverage. Before I would watch an hour preview or highlight show and that's it. Now you have SportsCenter, all of the debate shows, NFL Countdown, etc. They all talk about the same topics day after day and not much of it is football related. They're too busy talking about suspensions, celebrations, what shoes a guy is wearing, who is protesting what, etc. Couldn't care less about any of that. Add in social media and the multitude of websites and it's 365 days of coverage.

3. Commercials. NFL Redzone is fantastic because I can constantly watch games. Over the course of watching a single game there are too many breaks in the action.

4. Average fan priced out. Tickets are expensive. Concessions are outrageous. You can't even buy team gear for a family because it's $40 for a t-shirt. How are you supposed to get a younger generation interested if they can't afford to consume your product?
 
take off the helmets, no more using the helmet as a weapon
 
The over saturation of coverage is a turn off to me. That's for any sport. Yeah some weeks I like to see what the team is doing to prepare. But most of the time, I try to reserve the sport for game days only.

I think that's where pro sports are messing up. Is constant coverage.
I understand it's marketing, fans want to know why a team isn't producing when needed, etc.

I just felt sundays/mondays were more special when you had a certain hype rather than constant exposure
 
take off the helmets, no more using the helmet as a weapon

Spoken for the truth but there is a major flaw....... If the helmet was to be removed then common athletes could play the game. It wouldn't take a "juiced up" no common sense thug to play. It would actually bring morals and commen sense into the game, YOU'D be changing the game from what we know and QUESTION in today's game.


BIG helmets for big heads is where it's at......





Salute the nation
 
For me as a veteran viewer of the NFL for over 30 years religiously every Sunday two things bother me.

The pussification of the game.....essentially removing kickoffs (one of the most exciting plays of a game). The officiating and the penalties now....you sneeze on the guy or graze him (oh Pass Interference). Some teams have deep pass plays as part of their game just to try to draw a Interference Call. It's taken over an aspect of the game and you even see NFL WR's & QB's now flopping just like soccer players in a game do to try and influence the NFL refs to throw the flag. It's such a critical penalty....the NFL can fix this by making it a 15 yd penalty and an automatic first down.

This isn't even close to the NFL I grew up watching as a kid! The game is a step down from what the NFL use to be! It really is a shame because the NFL was better 20 years ago than it in today.
 
I'm not completely understanding the "oversaturation" argument.

I'll say this again, if the product was good enough you would want MORE of it, not complain about how there's too much of it. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, like it or not, and is literally year round with club teams and international teams and fans aren't clamoring for less of it despite being inundated.

Now I think part of the oversaturation argument is ESPN turning into CNN lately so it seems like the things they or NFL Network do discuss aren't things fans want to hear. So in that sense I can see an oversaturation of ****** commentary and analysis but most of it all falls back to the product on the field is suffering, which makes Thursday night and Monday night games seem like chores to watch rather than actually something we'd want to watch even if the Steelers aren't playing.
 
I don't buy the line about NFL ratings going downhill. Fans will follow their team and think the rest of the league is screwed up. Has anyone here stopped watching Steelers games? I think not. Its bull.


Well the NFL is still on top of Mount Everest in terms of TV ratings. The truth is almost all ratings of shows is going down hill thanks to millennials watching TV differently. and an aging population. The older a person is, the less likely they are to watch sports.

Millennials who might be better referred the sensitive generation prefers mobile devices and OTT streaming, not a big screen in the living room.

I think the NFL needs to be careful. The NFL union boss is a tool and is beating drums about a player strike, yet the salary cap keeps going up, while at the same time the ratings are going down. This is a bad trend in the long run, and it needs to change sometime in the next 5-10 years.

IMO a strike could tick off 5-10% of the fans, and make them either lose interests or find something else to watch they like better.
 
For me as a veteran viewer of the NFL for over 30 years religiously every Sunday two things bother me.

The pussification of the game.....essentially removing kickoffs (one of the most exciting plays of a game). The officiating and the penalties now....you sneeze on the guy or graze him (oh Pass Interference). Some teams have deep pass plays as part of their game just to try to draw a Interference Call. It's taken over an aspect of the game and you even see NFL WR's & QB's now flopping just like soccer players in a game do to try and influence the NFL refs to throw the flag. It's such a critical penalty....the NFL can fix this by making it a 15 yd penalty and an automatic first down.

This isn't even close to the NFL I grew up watching as a kid! The game is a step down from what the NFL use to be! It really is a shame because the NFL was better 20 years ago than it in today.

Although it will never happen, I wish the NFL would allow the fans to vote on certain things.

Moving the kickoff 5 yards back to where returns happen to me is a great part of the game taken away. Who wouldn't vote for it?
 
Official week 1 ratings are out and they aren't pretty...down 13% from last season. This doesn't even include ESPN numbers for MNF which I would think of all the time slots, that'd be the lowest rated. The ratings drop is real.


Nielsen had to delay its release of the television ratings for Week 1 of the new NFL season due to Hurricane Irma. Now the Week 1 ratings are out—and they aren’t good.

Sunday Night Football between the Dallas Cowboys and New York Giants was the only slot in which viewership rose compared to last year; every other slot was down double digits.

Overall, Week 1 ratings, excluding Monday Night Football, fell 13% from a year ago. (MNF ratings are still delayed, though initial reports expect them to be down vs last year.)

The Thursday Night season opener, between the New England Patriots and Kansas City Chiefs, rated a 14.6, which is 11.5% down from 2016, and 17.5% down from 2015. This marks four years in a row that the season opener has seen a ratings decline vs the year before.

Sunday’s afternoon games did the worst: regional games on CBS fell 17%, regional games on Fox fell 28%, and the Sunday afternoon national game on Fox fell 17%.

It was a “tough start for the NFL,” UBS analysts wrote in a research note on Thursday. (See below chart from UBS using Nielsen data.)

UBS ascribes some of the decline to Hurricane Irma. Cable news networks saw an 8.5 million-person spike in viewership during the hurricane, more than double the decline NFL viewers. Many people that would have been watching football may have been watching news. The ‘cable news distraction’ was also the reasoning the NFL used last season for its ratings decline at that time, amidst the election.

It’s worth noting that on the same weekend, the Stephen King clown movie “It” was smashing box office records, which may call into question the notion that the NFL ratings dip is strictly from hurricane coverage.

UBS cautions, “It will likely take several weeks of data to gauge the health of the NFL this season … Certainly, if this pace of decline continues, we would consider it quite bearish for media.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tough-start-nfl-season-ratings-13-week-1-145729365.html
 
When I turn on an NFL show, pregame, or NFL live during week, I want to hear football talk, injuries, matchups, etc, anymore it's political crap, whose kneeling, what player has the most social media followers, etc, **** that. **** like that kills any build up to the weekend.

Sent from my XT1585 using Steeler Nation mobile app
 
When I turn on an NFL show, pregame, or NFL live during week, I want to hear football talk, injuries, matchups, etc, anymore it's political crap, whose kneeling, what player has the most social media followers, etc, **** that. **** like that kills any build up to the weekend.

Sent from my XT1585 using Steeler Nation mobile app


It's crazy, but if you want real football talk, the best pregame is ESPN's fantasy pregame show. It's on ESPN2 at same time as the "real' show. They go game by game talking about injuries and matchups. Even if you don't play fantasy, you will get far more info about the day's games watching the fantasy show. No politics, no sappy stories about a player's mom or a community center somebody built. Just who's playing and who should have a good or bad matchup and why.

people who do 't play fantasy don't get how detailed it can be. You don't win fantasy by starting Le'veon bell. You win by starting the correct RB on New England or the slot WR who has a big day because the defense took away the #1 WR.

You'll hear more discussion of Eli Rogers and JuJu on a fantasy show than on a so called real football show.
 
I agree most everything said on this thread but I like to throw my 2 cents in.... espn kinda lead to a resurgence in the NFL with the Sunday night game... with boomer and tom and the guys... it was just the right tone, not over blown not gossipy, it was all business and with a replay of the day games done by boomer it was like the old MNF. But espn has change and ppls perception of sports has changed with it. now its more politics mixed in, more non football gossip most of is which happening off the field and more than anything, cynicism has replaced the optimism that team sports gives ppl. I remember NBC out bidding espn for Sunday nite football and they had Keith overman wth his "worse person of the week" to out espn espn.. really??? WTF No one watches football for that clown and his negative anti American horseshit!!! And It's been downhill every since. Just my 2 cents
 
It's crazy, but if you want real football talk, the best pregame is ESPN's fantasy pregame show. It's on ESPN2 at same time as the "real' show. They go game by game talking about injuries and matchups. Even if you don't play fantasy, you will get far more info about the day's games watching the fantasy show. No politics, no sappy stories about a player's mom or a community center somebody built. Just who's playing and who should have a good or bad matchup and why.

people who do 't play fantasy don't get how detailed it can be. You don't win fantasy by starting Le'veon bell. You win by starting the correct RB on New England or the slot WR who has a big day because the defense took away the #1 WR.

You'll hear more discussion of Eli Rogers and JuJu on a fantasy show than on a so called real football show.



I despise fantasy football but have grown into this discipline awhile ago, of course its few and far between when I do watch anything besides STEELERS football.........................




Salute the nation
 
I tend to think the league launching its own YouTube channel is the biggest factor.

People have figured out that they can bypass all the stoppages in action and commercials by waiting a few hours for the high quality highlight videos provided by the league.
 
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Roger Goodell and the owners have really pussified the game we all love known as football. All the rule changes in the past 10 years have changed the game and not for the better. They want a wide open pass oriented style football game with high scoring close games. Combine this is poor officiating and all the jack ***** in the NFL who don't respect our country by standing up for the National Anthem.

It's the same reason the movie industry is down.....it's because as celebrities.....they like to be on a pedestal and think they are better than everyone else and they can speak their minds without any repercussions. The truth of the matter is the average american could really care less what you have to say....we enjoy you for the movies you make and respect you as actors. When it comes to your political beliefs....STFU and just do what you do best.

It's the same thing when it comes to the NFL Players....STFU your making millions of dollars....play the game, entertain the fans and at the end of the day walk off into the sunset.
 
Roger Goodell and the owners have really pussified the game we all love known as football. All the rule changes in the past 10 years have changed the game and not for the better. They want a wide open pass oriented style football game with high scoring close games. Combine this is poor officiating and all the jack ***** in the NFL who don't respect our country by standing up for the National Anthem.

It's the same reason the movie industry is down.....it's because as celebrities.....they like to be on a pedestal and think they are better than everyone else and they can speak their minds without any repercussions. The truth of the matter is the average american could really care less what you have to say....we enjoy you for the movies you make and respect you as actors. When it comes to your political beliefs....STFU and just do what you do best.

It's the same thing when it comes to the NFL Players....STFU your making millions of dollars....play the game, entertain the fans and at the end of the day walk off into the sunset.

Great point. What we are seeing is the result of a very determined and successful Marxist invasion of our popular culture, and we don't like it.
 
Great. Now we get the black power salute from Bennett after a sack.
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https://twitter.com/Allblackmedia/status/909548420469227520/photo/1

Won't be great for ratings.
 
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