Don't look now but the National Football League is committing robbery and murder. And, it's an inside job. The fans are the ones getting robbed and the game is getting killed. The motive: greed and stupidity.
More and more regular season NFL games are being blacked out locally because the games aren't sold out 72 hours before kickoff. This year the unthinkable occurred when the Miami-Indianapolis playoff game was blacked out. We had a playoff game featuring a team with a storied history, passionate fans, and one of the best young quarterbacks in the game-Peyton Manning. If that wasn't bad enough, the league had to play funny games with their 72-hour rule to allow two other playoff games to be shown locally. Something is drastically wrong.
The NFL's 72-hour blackout rule was born out of a necessity to make professional football stable and to motivate fans to go to the stadium instead of staying at home and watching it on television. The league was caught between needing to have television to promote and market the game and making sure they didn't hurt the local team's gate revenue. Television did exactly what the NFL wanted it to. It created a solid image, excitement for the game, made talented players stars, and hooked fans into becoming loyal followers of their favorite team and ravishing consumers of anything associated with the NFL. Because of television, the league is a multi-billion dollar business, and has never been stronger.
Times have changed, but the NFL hasn't when it comes to their blackout rule. The league is now established and the need to punish and penalize fans is not only outdated, but arrogant. Like anything else in the entertainment field, good products get good attendance. Good movies, plays, and concerts will always have good audiences-bad ones won't. So why is the NFL demanding fans buy tickets to watch bad teams play bad football? What they're saying is, "If you don't buy all the tickets to watch your bad team play, you'll be punished and won't be able to watch your local team at all." And what about the fans that can't afford to buy tickets, but still want to watch their local team play? Not only has the NFL priced them out of going to a game, they also consider them "second class" football fans.
Television is the tail that wags the dog. The networks pay billions to the league to broadcast the games. They make that money back through advertising, promotions and marketing. Fox Sports needed to make a splash and draw attention to their pitiful programming lineup so they went out and offered more than CBS offered for the right to televise NFC games. The thinking being: the money spent to grab the NFC was less than they'd have to spend to promote their bad programming lineup and make viewers and advertisers think they were a credible network.
Having said that, why then don't Fox and CBS, which has the AFC broadcast rights, force the league to eliminate the blackout rule or at the least change it to within 24 hours of kickoff. The NFL's ratings are down and blacking out any market takes away viewers and that takes away ratings. Low ratings takes away advertising dollars. Network television has never been afraid to use their financial clout before, why hesitate now? And the NFL can't stand on "football fans still get to see an NFL game in a blacked out market." If your local team is blacked out, I doubt they have much interest in a game between two teams that may also be as bad as their local team. You can't tell me that Raider fans will watch Cincinnati against anyone if the silver and black are home, but blacked out.
The NFL's argument, in addition to the ones listed above, is that if fans truly support their team, then they should do so in good and bad times. That's ridiculous. In addition to high ticket prices, fans feel no emotional connection to their team because of free agency or what is perceived as overpaid players and the players' theatrics and showboating on the field during a game. Today, fans see the negatives outnumbering the positives when it comes to being an NFL fan.
Fans will tolerate only so much and they've reached their breaking point. The saddest part is the arrogance of the NFL. They've been the big dog for so long, they think their way is the only way. Corporate sponsorship and escalating millions for broadcast rights-even with decreasing viewership-has made the league myopic about what's best for the game and the fans. I hope they wake up and make fan friendly changes before they realize they have to spend more money than ever to keep the fans they do have and to attract new ones-not to mention those they lost because of this fiasco.
History has taught us when great institutions and empires fall; they do so from within. Stupidity and arrogance are major contributors to any downfall. Hopefully the commissioner and others in decision-making positions in the NFL will heed that lesson. If not, every NFL game could be blacked out because the fans said "enough is enough" and "who needs it."
I feel better now.
I'm Ron Barr.
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