4 ms·

One of the best things about sports is that they are seasonal. If they weren't, people would grow tired of them and they wouldn't be that interesting. For exam

One of the best things about sports is that they are seasonal. If they weren't, people would grow tired of them and they wouldn't be that interesting. For example, professional wrestling is a year round "sports" TV show. Without big events like special pay per view shows and such, it would have completely died. As it is, without "Wrestlemania Season" once a year, it would lose a lot of its audience over time because it would have trouble building to anything interesting. Professional wrestling has a resurgence once a decade or so because like many fads, there is a hook that gets people in, but since it never ends, people grow tired and move on to other things. The biggest performers - Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Shawn Michaels, Brett Heart, Steve Austin, Dwayne Johnson, and John Cena. Each one's careers coincided with a short "peak" in the business that eventually trailed off as another couple guys had their own peak 5-10 years later. If NFL or any other sport moves towards more games, more tv, more exposure, it is going to risk being overexposed in a huge way. Case in point - curling. One of the huge draws of curling is that for most Americans it is only on tv once every 4 years for the Olympics. That has added a mystique and an interest that makes it fascinating to watch. If curling was on every Saturday afternoon all year long, its ratings during the Olympics would drop.

Too 13y ago
It's not just the audience that grow tired, also the players. If you have an all year around sport then there will be no match that is the most important. All matches are equally important(unimportant) and the players become numb. Compare watching the early rounds of NHL each season with the Stanley Cup semi finals, winning the former doesn't mean shit but winning the later means everything, when do you think the players will give their max, which one will be more interesting to watch?
- jgon 13y ago
  As a Canadian this strikes me as incredibly true. I'm at the point where I really don't watch that much regular season hockey anymore. The NHL keeps extending the season and trying to add more teams and it is just becoming tiresome. But once the playoffs are on I would pit hockey against any other sport on the planet for entertainment. The olympics were another example of this. The hockey played was at such an incredible level that I watched every game I could. I couldn't get over how intense and entertaining the games were, and if more people saw that style of hockey it would be much bigger than it is now with over 80 games, 60% of which will be absolute snoozers. Football has an incredible advantage in that its players get ~1 week to rest up in between games and with only 16 games, they are all pretty important. This means that most games are played at a high level of intensity and skill and are thus more entertaining. Moving to dilute this quality in pursuit of more revenue is a path I've watched the NHL walk down, and hopefully the NFL can learn from their mistakes.
philwelch 13y ago
Is this solely an American phenomenon? Soccer runs from August to May with a major international tournament (either the Copa America, European Championship, or the World Cup) most summers and it's the most popular spectator sport in the world.

Too 13y ago

It's not just the audience that grow tired, also the players. If you have an all year around sport then there will be no match that is the most important. All matches are equally important(unimportant) and the players become numb. Compare watching the early rounds of NHL each season with the Stanley Cup semi finals, winning the former doesn't mean shit but winning the later means everything, when do you think the players will give their max, which one will be more interesting to watch?

jgon 13y ago
As a Canadian this strikes me as incredibly true. I'm at the point where I really don't watch that much regular season hockey anymore. The NHL keeps extending the season and trying to add more teams and it is just becoming tiresome. But once the playoffs are on I would pit hockey against any other sport on the planet for entertainment. The olympics were another example of this. The hockey played was at such an incredible level that I watched every game I could. I couldn't get over how intense and entertaining the games were, and if more people saw that style of hockey it would be much bigger than it is now with over 80 games, 60% of which will be absolute snoozers. Football has an incredible advantage in that its players get ~1 week to rest up in between games and with only 16 games, they are all pretty important. This means that most games are played at a high level of intensity and skill and are thus more entertaining. Moving to dilute this quality in pursuit of more revenue is a path I've watched the NHL walk down, and hopefully the NFL can learn from their mistakes.

philwelch 13y ago

Is this solely an American phenomenon? Soccer runs from August to May with a major international tournament (either the Copa America, European Championship, or the World Cup) most summers and it's the most popular spectator sport in the world.