5 ms·

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 dolla

by tw04 10y ago

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.

cle 10y ago
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.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- chipperyman573 10y ago
  Out of curiosity (having never watched sports), what causes these blackouts? Is it contacts with the service providers?
  - peteboyd 10y ago
    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.
- forgetsusername 10y ago
  >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 It isn't random; it's an outdated approach to getting butts in seats.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.
matwood 10y ago
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.
- alistproducer2 10y ago
  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.
  - re_todd 10y ago
    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.
  - Trill-I-Am 10y ago
    What could they do to alleviate head trauma without essentially neutering the game?
sliken 10y ago
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.
- bsder 10y ago
  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.
  - mschuster91 10y ago
    > 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...)
- nitelord 10y ago
  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.

by tw04 10y ago

cle 10y ago

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.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
chipperyman573 10y ago
Out of curiosity (having never watched sports), what causes these blackouts? Is it contacts with the service providers?
- peteboyd 10y ago
  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.
forgetsusername 10y ago
>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.

matwood 10y ago

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.

alistproducer2 10y ago
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.
- re_todd 10y ago
  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.
- Trill-I-Am 10y ago
  What could they do to alleviate head trauma without essentially neutering the game?

sliken 10y ago

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.

bsder 10y ago
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.
- mschuster91 10y ago
  > 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...)
nitelord 10y ago
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.