NFL Attendance

Other Leagues and Entertainment
#1

CFL is not the only league dealing with attendance issues.

Four NFL teams have lost significant numbers of fans in last decade

Excerpts:

“Not surprisingly, fewer fans are going to games in person. Financial news site 24/7 Wall St. used sports attendance data from ESPN over the past 10 years and found every one of the four major sports leagues in the United States has seen a decline in total attendance from 2008 to 2018.”

“Washington saw the biggest attendance decline among NFL franchises, ranking fifth with a 31.1 percent drop in average attendance, according to 24/7 Wall St.
The team led the NFL in average attendance in 2008, with 88,604 fans packing FedEx Field that season. In 2018, Washington averaged 61,028 fans, a decline of 31.1 percent”

“The Bengals rank seventh on the list with a 21.4 percent drop in average attendance, the Buccaneers 10th with a 15.7 percent decline and the Colts 12th with a 10.8 percent decline.”

#2

They could perhaps look to ticket prices as a causal factor. Any basic economics text will tell you that there’s an inverse correlation between prices and the quantity demanded. The owners however ignore this detail in the fantasy land they’ve created for themselves.

::slight_smile:

#3

Like I said before (it got deleted for some reason), you can’t criticize any league other than the CFL. Sheesh.?

#4

Maybe fans are tired of the on field product.

#5

Multiple Reasons for more folks than ever, even lifelong friends of mine, to just say forget it:

  1. The game day experience is worse than in decades as the home experience has improved for those who are still fans. That trend began in 2010 though was blamed on the recession instead of old TV models still pandered by the NFL and cable.

  2. The NFL Sunday Ticket was once an enviable offering. Not long after ATT bought DirecTV, the customer experience was awful and many abandoned those subscriptions for cable or broadcast only.

  3. The migration to fantasy sports and increased gambling, which initially grew interest with even more also younger fans but now they hardly bother to go to or watch games as much.

  4. Whatever the views, once the NFL became political in the midst of yet another nasty and uncivil American presidential political campaign, many were turned off because most don’t want politics infused with sports.

  5. Under the less than aware leadership of its then head, ESPN infused politics with sports and thus had laid the stage for greater inflammatory reactions to Kaepernick’s stand during a political campaign.

  6. NFL broadcasts, except on NBC sometimes (save Mike Tirico who has always been awful lest perhaps for the Olympics), have been worse including with more commercials and promotion than ever plus far more homering of announcers’ preferred star QB in a game.

Mark Cuban was right earlier this decade, though I figure somewhat in spite, because the owners would not allow him to have discussions at the same table in regards to prospective ownership.

The NFL pigs got slaughtered and it’s not over though Sunday Night Football and the playoffs should hold up and more just fine.

#6

I think they are even more tired of all the nonsense that’s been piled onto the product especially in this decade.

The NFL have overplayed their hand beyond how they’ve not dealt well with domestic violence and until the settlement, player safety and the matter of the real impact of concussions after play is over.

#7

says the CFL is 8th in attendance World Wide. This includes all the big leagues. Don’t know what it all means but it is significant.

In the US they are still complaining that MLS fakes their attendance and it looks like more then a white lie.

https://twitter.com/emptyseatsmls?lang=en

#8

Also we have to wonder as usual about various reported attendance figures from various sources.

Sure the ownership counts for any given game or match, and only cares about, gross revenue growth.

A packed venue is just that visually as well.

Real attendance that matters for would be calculated by a certain formula such as real attendees plus 10% to allow for no-shows. Good luck getting any two fans to agree never mind owners and leagues.

The NFL for example in the years of blackouts, especially for teams in Florida, would have all the unsold tickets bought up so as to proclaim a “sell out crowd” so as to avoid a national embarassment for a nationally-televised game.

It’s obvious when there are visually a lot of empty seats in a “sell out,” which they try to mask with the colours, versus big loud mouths and bums in all of them (i.e. /chuckles at random shot of common crowd down here in the US like any given Wal-Mart).

#9

Tyreek Hill - wow. I wonder if this will hurt attendance and ratings overall after the initial fuss in September?