Wall Street Journal: The NFL Is Losing Its Core Audience, a WSJ/NBC News Poll Finds.

[micnificent28]

If someone kneeling makes you not want to watch football how much do you really care about football. Like you taking a knee doesn’t bother me at all. I think that’s Fox News telling everyone you are being unpatriotic and up until not to long ago the nfl didn’t even do this flag thing at all. I would kneel every chance I got.

[mc52beast]

Look at the most watched tv listing last year and the NFL owns a majority of it. People are still watching, just not the same way as in the past. 

[rayzor]

6 hours ago, Khyber53 said:

Honestly, it's just following the cyclical nature of American entertainment trends. Remember when NASCAR got really hot a few years back and was the biggest thing going nationwide, not just in the traditional stronghold of the South? Celebrities were going to the races and it was a big deal. Then it just kinda faded back to its stalwarts and a handful of new permanent fans picked up during the swell. It was a fad for a while, partly because it just got a favorable trend, partly due to timely marketing. 

The same thing has happened to the NFL over the last decade. The fad started fading last season after it had really become the biggest thing going. Some are going to pin it on the kneeling players/anthem issue, but really, it is just more a matter of the fickle viewing public. It's just coming down off its peak. The league won't be going away, any more than NASCAR or the NBA faded out of existence. It will just go back to where it once was, two game slots on Sundays and a single Monday night game. 

And honestly, that'll be better for the real fans, the players and the longterm health of the league.

i think this is pretty much dead on. @Porn Shop Clerkhad some good points as well about pricing out of the market.

the league just got really hot and trendy for a while, but that is never sustainable. the public is fickle and will move to other things just like they moved to the NFL.

people will look for the smoking gun, but really it's all of them. all of the answers and reasons people give in this thread are right for why viewership is declining. the only wrong answers are those who are saying it isn't declining.

the NFL has a lot of issues, but a lot of the issues come from the league trying to make itself more marketable. it's understandable that they would want to do this, but the market has become so diverse and divided (last presidential election really made matters worse) and the sitting president certainly didn't help matters, but whoever the dems would have chosen wouldn't have helped matters either. when the public is as divided as it is and you're trying to market your product, you're going to have to choose who you market to and they drew the line in the sand trying to appeal to a certain demographic and excluded a whole other demographic in doing so. media made matters even worse because they are always hoping for any kind of drama and as soon as they see a trace of blood in the water they come swarming and all of this is from just one issue.

officiating has been crap since the refs came back from the lockout....or maybe they were just always bad, but i do know that the replacement refs were no worse than the ones who were locked out. i think that it's becoming more apparent that the refs are far from being immune from biases and proved it weekly. i think people are noticing it and it's only driving more people away...and to think these refs want that to be their full time jobs and think that making them full time will improve their performance? lol

the truth is, there will still be a core of people who watch, but that core will decline as long as the NFL work hard to protect their product. when fantasy football started getting popular in the early-mid 2000s, the league started fighting and threatening legal action against people who were cashing in on this new booming market. they backed off and that's when things really started to boom for the league. the way people watch entertainment is changing and the NFL is trying to fight another wave rather than ride it, only the result is likely to be while they work to figure this out, the public is going to keep losing interest and just start finding more shows on netflix to binge watch.

[outlaw4]

There's far more entertainment options today than even ten years ago. Of course it's going to be harder for someone to devote 4+ hours of football when they can watch clips on YouTube or binge on a series via Netflix, especially if they're cheaper options.

This is just my personal observation but from the start, I thought it was a mistake for the NFL to start automatic reviews of certain plays. There has, is and always will be officiating mistakes but it's getting to where all these stoppages are ruining the flow of the game. Yes, we still need to have a challenge system but I'm in the camp that it's the opposing team's responsibility to initiate the review. Three challenges per game but you win the challenge, you keep it. Something like that to make the game feel faster.

[Sean Payton's Vicodin]

i havent really cared since super bowl 50. of course my interest in the NFL at large back then was already declining.

My interest in the NFL peaked in 2008 tbh

[Paa Langfart]

I watch the Panthers for free on my tv every week via a television antenna.  For those games only broadcast on ESPN or NFL nw I use Reddit.  And it is free as well.  For those of you guys who are out of the Panthers broadcast area and paying some outrageous prices to watch games I highly recommend it - good feeds and its FREE !

[PurityControl]

6 minutes ago, Sean Payton's Vicodin said:

i havent really cared since super bowl 50. of course my interest in the NFL at large back then was already declining.

My interest in the NFL peaked in 2008 tbh

Yeah if you asked me say 10yr ago if I would ever be done with the NFL I would say NEVER, but now at 37yr with a wife & 2 kids & so many other options for entertainment, I could easily Imagine a future where I’m done with it all together, especially if my kids grow up and have no interest in it that could be the death knell for me.

[rayzor]

6 hours ago, The Huddler said:

Thank god for the xfl!

interesting point of discussion here.

i think this is coming about because mcmahon believes he can cash in on people who are losing interest in the NFL, but what he doesn't get is that it's not just the NFL, but the game itself that people are losing interest in. he should have tried to strike when the NFL was hot and people couldn't get enough.

i think xfl 2.0 is headed for the same destination the first iteration was. people who quit watching the NFL aren't going to jump to another version of the game. they're going to go to whatever the next hot thing is for whatever demographic they fit into.

[RealisticPanther]

1 hour ago, micnificent28 said:

If someone kneeling makes you not want to watch football how much do you really care about football. Like you taking a knee doesn’t bother me at all. I think that’s Fox News telling everyone you are being unpatriotic and up until not to long ago the nfl didn’t even do this flag thing at all. I would kneel every chance I got.

its highly annoying to people who are sick of politics and race being pushed in our faces constantly. And no, i don't want this to open up a debate about race, let's just leave it at people feel that way whether you agree with it or not.

[Davidson Deac II]

19 minutes ago, RealisticPanther said:

its highly annoying to people who are sick of politics and race being pushed in our faces constantly. And no, i don't want this to open up a debate about race, let's just leave it at people feel that way whether you agree with it or not.

The kneeling part really isn't a big deal.  In fact, I rarely watched the anthem anyway, unless I was at the game.  

What annoyed me was the increasingly political bend of the various sports news shows on espn and the other sports channels.  Its why I stopped watching all of those years ago.  

[raleigh-panther]

I think it is many things. ...a preponderance of things 

Concussions.

close ups of severe injuries on camera 

Over exposure.  

Unwarranted violence.  Many of my friends on the West coast watched the hits to the head on Cam Newton in opening game 2016, the reigning mvp, and said they would never watch football again   

Over rich owners and over paid players thinking they are something they really aren’t.  

Social media exposure of bad behavior.  

Exposure of bad behavior on the field by players like Beckham

Player strikes and lockouts of said owners and players 

the flag stance very poor   These players forget that real sacrifice comes home in a coffin with a flag covering it and it does not matter whatever noble cause they think they were honoring, it turned a lot of people off. 

Potential fixing of games.  It sure has seemed that way to me 

add to it millennials who aren’t going to pony up cost of a ticket and it should be obvious why the games are expanding non-US (in Europe and Mexico)

 

[SCMunnerlyn1]

Lack of physicality has caused me to lose interest. Anything remotely resembling a violent play is a penalty it's just a snooze fest.

[SmokinwithWilly]

NFL has really priced themselves out of the market for my tastes, as well has a lot of pro sports. Hockey at the collegiate/junior level and football/basketball at the collegiate level really give more bang for the buck. Players seem to genuinely try harder, games aren't constantly interrupted by commercial time outs, and overall, there's just less drama between players/fans. I don't have time to dedicate 8-10 hours on a Sunday going to sit in a stadium drinking over priced stale beer and eating $100 hot dogs. It's just not worth it. 

[lightsout]

Watch. More. Hurricanes. Hockey.