re: Is America finally experiencing football fatigue?

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I’m probably alone here but the quirkiness of college football is what set it apart. The championship selection process was messy but it made the regular season matter more than any other sport.

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The regular season hasn't mattered in CFB for about 15 years now. It may have mattered for 100+ teams, but there were a select group that could still lose and those losses counted as wins anyway.

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Think of the explosion of games on Saturday. Wall to Wall on Fox and ABC/ESPN. CBS....NBC in on the action with Big 10 games on Saturday night along with Notre Dame home games. Fox also has moved into Friday night.

Then the NFL with Monday and Thursday plus now Black Friday games.

It becomes a bit much by the beginning of November

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I’m going to open the OK Boomer crap with this, but it’s a useful comparison. In 1980, rural Louisiana northeast of Baton Rouge we had access to channels 2 (ABC), 9 (CBS), and 33 (NBC). It was very rare to get a decent picture on 33, so it was really just 2 and 9. The Saints went 1-15 that year, but I watched every game that wasn’t on 33 with great excitement. You might have LSU football televised 2-3 times a year then. EVERY game, Saints or LSU that you could watch on television seemed like a major event if you loved football.

Now…not so much.

I barely watched any college football this past season. Don't care for the NIL/transfer portal garbage

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At first look it seems ridiculous, but that may be what drives it's success as a televised sport. You can casually watch it and not miss any of the game action. Watch a play, chat with family or friends, watch a slo-mo replay, have a snack or take a drink, watch another play, chat about the play, etc.

It makes for very social viewing. Could they tighten it up, get rid of the fluff, and reduce the time? Absolutely.

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This is why basketball sucks. And then the parts at the end of the game you actually want to be locked in to watch, that's when there's a million stoppages and commercials.

The NFL has spent the last 20 years willfully diluting and weakening it's product all in the name of additional revenue. Look, I get it. I'm a capitalist too, I understand that businesses exist to make money. But if you spend enough time weakening your product you can't act shocked if you start to lose your customer base.

No fans were calling for a 17th game (and certainly not an 18th). Few fans wanted a 7th playoff team (I liked that the 2 seeds could still get a bye). Few fans want an expanded slate of international games. The Thursday night games are routinely the sloppiest of the week because 3 days is just not enough time to be ready to play again. The draft is less fun now that it takes place Thursday - Saturday instead of Saturday and Sunday. Adding more broadcasting partners via streaming apps just means fans have to spend more to get all of the games we want.

I could go on and on. The fact of the matter is the NFL in the Goodell era hasn't focused on doing one single thing to actually strengthen the game and make it more entertaining for fans. If it makes them a nickle more then they'll do it and damn the fans that complain about it.

The NFL has acted under the assumption that nothing they could ever do would turn fans off from watching, which for the most part has been true going back to the 70s. But there's always going to be a limit at some point and the NFL has made it clear that they're not going to stop until they blow past that limit and at that point it may be too late.

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If it makes them a nickle more then they'll do it and damn the fans that complain about it.

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They will continue stacking those nickels until the fans do something about it. Capitalism.

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let everyone know that the 2025 season of Major League Rugby kicks off on February 15.

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Seldom Seen

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Username checks out

The nfl has a flag problem.

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It’s mostly just commercials and players standing around

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And it gets worse the further you break it down.

The average football game is something like 150 plays. If you say 6 seconds per play give or take, you end up with about 15 minutes of actual game action in 3+ hours.

Season teetering on NBA ridiculousness.

Too many teams, too many bowls, too long.

Ohio State won the MNC in 1954 at 10-0.

This year Ohio State won the Playoff Title at 14-2.