The Fall of American Football Is a Very Real Possibility

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For a long, long time now, the NFL has been the king of Sundays in the Fall. Hell, it’s more or less a year-round obsession at this point. If you’re just stumbling upon this site because your boy wrote one hell of a headline, then…well, first of all, welcome in. Second of all, there’s not going to be a lot of hard science here. Namely because we’re a comedy site…but also because we’re just dudes (and one lady) talkin’ here.

I’ve had this conversation with several of the other writers here and our readers alike, so I thought, “hell, why not put it up on the site and make this opinion known?” I spend hours scouring the web for content, but man – sometimes, it just falls right into your lap without you realizing it.

With that in mind, we’re going to cover this topic in a very casual way.

In case you’ve missed my assertion…I think it’s not only possible, but likely, that within the next 10-20 years, American football as we know it will have changed completely. A lot of factors will contribute to the sport’s decline in popularity.

Concussions

Chargers great Junior Seau committed suicide in 2012. Studies concluded Seau suffered from CTE.

The extent of research showing that football leads to concussions is staggering, exhaustive, and there’s no way I can cover it all here without turning this into a bona fide journal. But, the bottom line is – if you take a lot of hits playing football, it is bad for your head.

I’ll admit – I’ve never understood how one could take the field and not realize that. I’ve been a little hard on football players, but supportive of the choice they have to do what they wish with their bodies. “If they want to go out and throw their bodies around, it’s their choice to make.”

People would tell me, “but the extensive research wasn’t out back in the day.” And, I’d default to, “how could anyone possibly not realize that enduring the rough equivalent of a car wreck every Sunday was bad for you?”

But, what I didn’t realize is that…well…not to be cruel, but…not every football player combs through research on the damages of playing football. They just stick to what they know, and they do what they do.

It’s the same reason a man walks into a coal mine every day, despite the very obvious health concerns. It’s bred into him. He is a product of his conditioning.

I know the response has been – “well, so what? you think you’re going to get football players off the field?” Yeah…it’s a great point. It would take a massive overhaul of the football culture to create change.

When you’re telling kids (they are effectively kids) that they can make millions if they just tough it out and play for a few seasons, they’re less likely to walk away. To change a tough culture like this, it has to start from within.

Promising 49ers linebacker Chris Borland retired after just one season in the NFL, citing head trauma as the biggest factor in the decision.

Guess what…it is. We’re starting to see players retire before even hitting their prime. But that’s only going to prove effective for those who are already in football. Fellow NFL players and kids in college and high school see their colleagues retiring and it probably hits a lot closer to home than hearing someone outside of the football culture telling them they should retire. That’s not where the NFL is going to be hit the hardest in the coming years.

You’re starting to see the moms and dads steer their kids away from football. The research is out now, and parents just don’t want their kids playing football…plain and simple. I’ve seen it firsthand. That effect will trickle down through generations. When all the kids are switching over to soccer and basketball, the football leagues will dwindle down.

And, as more kids focus on other sports, less talent will be made available to high schools, colleges, and even the NFL.

The concussion issue is the single largest threat to the sustainability of the NFL, but there are other reasons that could contribute to its downfall.

Cost

The upgrades to Jacksonville’s stadium feature pools from which you can watch the games.

Have you been to a NFL game recently? The tickets aren’t cheap…but nothing else is either. The last game I went to, I spent $70 on my ticket, $10 per beer for two beers, and $14 for a basket of burnt ass chicken tenders. That’s $104, and that’s just for me. Also, I didn’t have to pay for parking as I rode with a buddy. But, I can’t imagine having to take a family of four or five to one of these games.

I would be terrified to build a billion dollar stadium these days. It’s becoming more and more of a luxury event each season. Hell, the Super Bowl is already largely a luxury event.

NFL teams could end up pricing their games into lower attendance…and then what? Just from a business perspective, I can’t put it any simpler than, “less money coming in means less money to run the business.” Downscaling would be inevitable.

At-home Experience

With the cost of attending games skyrocketing, the at-home viewing experience is looking more and more attractive. With the advent of high definition and 3D television, there’s literally no view in any stadium that can replicate that. If you’re a fan of a bad team, you’re no longer tied to that game either. You can watch any game in the country that you want to these days. So, why would people choose to go out and pour money into a venue?

It all means less money is going into the live events. And, that makes ratings all the more important. The NFL will need to keep ratings high to get those lucrative TV contracts and advertising revenue…

Saturation

…which, well, isn’t exactly happening. Ratings declined in 2016. It’s simply my opinion that the saturation of the NFL caused people to tune it out. Think about it – games take place from Noon-10PM on Sundays, Monday nights, Thursday nights, and the occasional Saturday night in December. There’s 24/7 coverage of the NFL. For the casual fan, keeping up with it all can feel exhausting. You can’t pin declining ratings on one single item, but overall, it just seems like people are simply losing interest.

Attitudes

Just from a bottom line, societal standpoint, the attitudes of the very people who support the NFL are changing. It seems this is happening for a couple of reasons…look how the Colin Kaepernick stuff divided fans. You had some who said they were boycotting the NFL for allowing Kaepernick to kneel for the National Anthem. You had a different subset of fans who were saying they were going to boycott the NFL for not standing behind Kaepernick.

It became this huge divisive issue that all the media outlets covered for what felt like hours each day.

Why do people like sports? It’s entertainment. It’s escapism. When the lines are blurred between that escapism and reality, you always run the risk of alienating part of the fan base. That definitely happened.

Even before that, the way people viewed football players’ salaries was starting to change. Before, it was just the people who weren’t football fans, but even now, you’re starting to hear football fans question why athletes make so much.

But, what people fail to realize is that the NFL is a business. How do most businesses make money? They have customers that pour money into the machine. The NFL is no different. For decades, fans have bought tickets, jerseys, memorabilia, everything under the sun with their team’s logo on it.

With billions of dollars of revenue coming in, teams were able to pay the best players more money to keep them around. That’s how we got here – it’s that simple.

It won’t change until people stop pouring money into the machine, but guess what, that’s starting to happen, too. As I said above, people are losing interest, attendance is down, and the machine is in jeopardy. Look no further than San Diego.

The city’s taxpayers voted to not build a new stadium and subsequently lost the Chargers to Los Angeles. The people spoke, and the number of people who said ‘no’ outnumbered the number of people who said ‘yes.’ That’s fine by me – I’ve been telling people this for years, and it finally seems like people are starting to figure it out. The NFL isn’t always worth it – San Diegans probably saw that the NFL isn’t always going to be the golden ticket it was just two seasons ago.

Solution

All of this is to say there needs to be some sort of change…or there doesn’t. Hell, if the NFL wants to go the way of boxing in the fabric of Americana, that’s fine, too. But, the current product and the current model is not sustainable.

My prediction is that we will ultimately see flag football. The NFL will have no choice but to implement rules furthering player safety or they’ll lose the nation’s top athletic talents. They may have to scale some things down – coverage, stadium size, etc., but it’s still a game Americans enjoy consuming in some form or fashion.

The future is now.

One day, the generations ahead of us will look back at this iteration of football the way we look back at the leatherheads. “You mean to tell me they used to literally tackle each other??? How barbaric!”

Stoney Keeley is the Editor in Chief of The SoBros Network. A strong advocate of GSD (get shit done) and #BeBetter, he’s down to talk Tennessee Titans and Alabama Crimson Tide football over a beer any day. Check him out covering the WWE for WrestlingNews.co. Follow on Twitter @StoneyKeeley@WrestlingNewsCo

Like us on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter @SoBrosNetwork

 

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