NFL maintains popularity while other pro sports take a hit

[The_Philster]

Staying on top
The National Football League appears to be heading into uncertain times encased in a protective cocoon.

While the nation's economy struggles and sports fans seem to be straying from the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League and Major League Baseball, NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue's world continues to flourish.

"It is true the NFL seems to be a little more recession-proof than the rest of the leagues," said Rod Fort, professor of economics at Washington State University....

more (http://www.indystar.com/print/articles/8/054663-3108-038.html)

[WG]

I think a good part of the reason for that is that NBA, NHL, and even MLB tickets approach or surpass the cost of tickets for an NFL game.

The problem is that for an NFL game, when properly done :D, is an all day event. TGing etc. All for no extra charge. With the other sports, you go see the game and then leave.

As well, in football, there are 16 games, 8 home games. The game # equivalent in the other three sports are:

NBA (~80 games): 1 NFL game:5 NBA games
NHL (~80 games): 1 NFL game:5 NHL games
MLB (~160 games): 1 NFL game:10 MLB games

Throw in the fact that in the NHL and NBA the regular season isn't worth a turd since essentially all you have to do is be .500 to make the playoffs and sometimes teams below .500 make the playoffs. That is partially why I think expanding the NFL playoffs to more than 12 teams would hurt the sport. Right now the NFL regular season actually means something.

[G. Host]

The NFL is a lot more active in community service than other sports partly because they have more players and those players may have more time to do community service.

With other sports it appears to be all "big event" service events and often is connected to other pay events or endorsement deals.

[WG]

Come on G!

Pro baseball and b-ball players are a lot more involved in shooting and tearing up their own communities! LOL

Those are community services, right...

:scared:

:D

[WG]

I still like the commercial w/ Urlacher playing duck-duck-goose!

[G. Host]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
I still like the commercial w/ Urlacher playing duck-duck-goose!
So do I. And from what I heard from friends from Chicago it was partly Urlacher's idea - he wanted to show him just having fun with kids not just doing a stale community service piece.

Unfortunantely the large number of players also leads to other "community service" projects like the FB in Arizona doing "distribution" to community unfortunates.

[WG]

Yeah, I know, I'm just screwin' around. The NFL is very, very active in players taking such active roles. It's good, and better than contributions from players in other sports.

Pro football is the last bastion of pro sports influence that I find attractive or follow. Once that falls, if it does, likely w/ the Bills moving, then it'll be strictly college and minor league sports for me.

[ryven]

IMO it also has to do with the cap I think i.e. yankees they start charging more they buy more players in football the caps there so for a foot ball team to raise prices on alot there better be a good reason otherwise each team gets so much. I dont know But a theory.

[HenryRules]

I think there are three main reasons for the decline in popularity of the other sport leagues.

1 - Dilution of talent (MLB and NHL only) - These leagues over-expanded and only have enough talent to field 2/3 of the teams they do.

2 - Lack of all-time greatest players (NHL and NBA only) - In the NHL, there's LeMieux at the tail end, who is nothing like he was in the beginning (no 150+ point seasons) ... first time in decades there hasn't been a Howe, Orr, Gretzky, or LeMieux at their prime. In the NBA, there are some great players (Iverson, Shaq, Kobe), but no one with the combination of greatness/marketing/success of Jordan, Bird, or Magic.

3 - Boring styles of play (NHL and NBA only) - the teams in both these leagues play entirely defense-oriented games with very little action compared to only 5-10 years ago. NHL games score about half to 2/3 as often as they used to and in the NBA, the highest-scoring teams don't average 100 points, whereas that used to be around the league average.

[Demon]

Originally posted by Wys Guy
I still like the commercial w/ Urlacher playing duck-duck-goose!

lol.... i like the Eddie George one more though where those 2 kids keep fighting each other.

But seriously, i love NHL as much as the NFL but oviously the NHL doesn't get all my attention until December when i start to look at standings and stuff. In the NFL every game counts, even when the Bills play Houston for example because the easy games you need to win to make the playoffs.

Also, games are once a week, so fans have a whole week to discuss the good and the bad of the last game and to preview the next game, so everygame gets playoff type attention while in the NHL when the Sabres beat Florida for example, there will only be talk on local radio about it for 1 day.

[TheGhostofJimKelly]

What is the NBA, NHL, and MLB?????

Isn't there only NFL football!?!?!?!?!?!


But seriously, I think Wys has a point. There are so many games in the other leagues and they are on different nights. It's easy to watch football, they are all on the same time every week. Another thing is that it is football. It is the greatest sport in the land.

[Ð]

Originally posted by G. Host
The NFL is a lot more active in community service than other sports partly because they have more players and those players may have more time to do community service.


See, I knew there was an upside to those darn sentencing hearings.

[TheGhostofJimKelly]

Get that stupid looking flag off of your screen you d-head!

[colin]

The NFL is just a better league. The game is great, and it REALLY is about the game. Players and rules are not allowed to be bigger than the game, instant replay and other changes are made in an effort to make things better, the NHL is easily the worst league, crappy quality and poor teams overpaying players.