Credit: @WashTimes
The NFL has had issues in the past, but never at the magnitude they are facing now. Dwindling viewership, injuries, protests, and matchups are the main factors.
Fans like seeing their favorite players in the game instead of on the sidelines, or even worse, not there at all. In the six weeks of the 2017 NFL regular season, the list of players that are injured for at least multiple weeks includes Aaron Rodgers, Andrew Luck, Teddy Bridgewater, JJ Watt, Odell Beckham Jr, Brandon Marshall, Julian Edleman, David Johnson, Greg Olson, Tyler Eifert, and Eric Berry. Outside of injuries, there are suspensions being handed out and court decisions being waited on. Cowboys’ Ezekiel Elliot, the fourth pick in the 2016 NFL Draft, has been battling a six-game suspension based on misconduct during the offseason. Elliot has been fighting the suspension to this day. This is the second big-name player to fight against the NFL in recent years as Tom Brady eventually was suspended due to his role in ‘Deflategate’. These are some big names that are not able to see the field for an extended period and some names that fans tune in just to see their performances.
The protests are something that have been covered extensively over the past year. In a nutshell, Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the playing of the “National Anthem” to show there are inequalities in the country. However, some fans have made it about other factors, like disrespecting the military and President Trump’s tweets. As a result, many viewers are boycotting the NFL entirely. Week Five of the 2017 season saw the viewership drop eighteen percent from Week Five of the 2015 season the last season before Kaepernick took a knee. With this in mind, the NFL has not taken action against any player that has not stood for the “National Anthem.” The protests sprouted as an NFL issue, but recently a German Football (Soccer) Club, Hertha Berlin, joined the protest. With fans booing their favorite team as they take a knee in solidarity, the NFL has a major public relations issue brewing.
Concussions have taken a step back since the protests arose, however they are still a serious topic of discussion. The emergence of CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, has taken people by storm and has a possibility of taking a huge hit on the league’s future if appropriate actions are not taken. CTE is a degenerative brain disease that is found in a large percentage of athletes in contact sports due to constant head trauma. A Boston University study conducted earlier this year showed 99 percent of players’ brains had displayed signs of CTE. The only issue is that CTE is not determined until the brain is studied after the death of the person. With these alarming numbers and information coming out, football is seemed more barbaric than ever. People fear that they are watching the men on the field destroy each other physically and mentally for a lot longer than the four quarters. Parents are fearful for their children obtaining such a disease and are decreasing participation, which will affect the NFL as time goes on.
When a football fan is flipping through the channels, they want to watch the best game possible. Sometimes the fan will sacrifice watching their favorite team to see a more compelling matchup. The NFL is having an issue with that as the bottom-tier teams in the NFL are getting more diluted as the top-tier teams are lessening. Major market teams, such as the New York Giants, currently sit with a record of 1-5 while teams like the Buffalo Bills, that have a very small fanbase compared to the Giants, are currently slated to be a wild card team. Some would argue that teams like the Bills being good is a positive, but in actuality it is not. The New York media barely mentions the Buffalo Bills, a team located in upstate New York is in the playoffs while the Jets and Giants are not and still get mainstream media attention. Week six had a Sunday Night matchup of the New York Giants and the Denver Broncos, two very historic franchises in the league, sounds like a recipe for success? Only issue is that the Giants were heading in 0-5 and Denver’s quarterback situation has been mediocre at best. Why would an average viewer want to tune in to the game if stars are not on the field and the product is not up to par?
The NFL will have reasoning for lower viewership (they used the Election last year) but less people are interested in watching the NFL from the stadium and the comfort of their living rooms. The league has a big mess in front of it and only time will tell if they can fix it.
