I was a Cleveland Indians fan when I was a kid. We went to a few games each season (when we could afford it) but always followed the team on TV and the radio. I knew the batting averages of all the players and suffered all those years when the team was terrible. John Lowenstein was my favorite player. He was talented, but also had a sick sense of humor - the kind I like! I loved the Indians and I loved baseball.
Despite cheering for an average to terrible team all those years, I remained a fan. I enjoyed the strategy of baseball and the nuances that could lead to a win - or a loss. The combination of the strike in 1981 and the refusal of Baseball to address the rising use of performance enhancing drugs caused me to lose interest in the game. I decided to end my relationship with baseball.
I stopped watching. I stopped listening. I stopped reading about baseball. I stopped caring.
The first year was difficult. I missed the summer pastime and I missed the games. But I stuck to my decision to ignore baseball. To me, they were interested only in money and they arrogantly believed that whenever they reached an agreement on the contract dispute, the fans would return. It seemed that they thought that fans needed baseball so much, they could do anything to watch their beloved game.
I worked a portion of my career in the automotive industry. Strikes were very risky undertakings - both for management and for labor. Why? There were many reasons, but the biggest reason was the risk of losing the customer. In many pro sports, it doesn't seem (at least to me) that the customer is a factor at all. They will be back. Perhaps, but not me. Not for baseball. I didn't come back.
The other factor, was that I felt that the game was no longer "fair." As more players were enhanced by drugs, regular players that relied on only skill, training and nutrition were at a disadvantage. Management of baseball ignored the problem for many years. It may have even been good for them to do so. How many fans were riveted with interest when players started hitting 50 or 60 or more homers every year?
Since 1982, I have barely watched a few innings of Major League baseball. I doubt that I could list ten active players. I probably could not count all the cities that have teams. I am done with Major League Baseball. When I left, I spent more time with watching kids games. I worked on bonsais. I played music. I don't need baseball.
The Brickyard 400 race run recently at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. The big news story wasn't so much about who won, but that the attendance continues to shrink every year. If you got a ticket to the race the first few years, you were lucky. That has been replaced by smaller crowds each year and many marketing initiatives attempting to draw fans such as music concerts in conjunction with race festivities. Things have changed in 20 years.
So, onto the NFL. The NFL has been king for sports in the US for years. Almost everyone is at least minimally interested in the league and at least one team, and many people live and die with the NFL. Fantasy football is a major pastime. Even though it is fun to be a football fan, if you look at the industry from the outside, there are many issues.
The league clearly is run by the desire for money - and as much as humanly possible. I realize that businesses exist to make money. That is a given. But most businesses balance the desire for money with regard for the customer. I know that if my client is happy and sees value from our consulting work, I will get more money. Money is a result of satisfying or delighting the customer. I think the NFL has lost this realization. Ticket prices continue to go up. Advertising rates go up. Charging for two (generally) terrible exhibition games for the right to get season tickets, combined with having to buy tickets to all potential postseason games have pushed fans toward the exits. I haven't seen a live game at the stadium for several years and it looks to me like fans have reached the limit.
In economic terms, going to a game results in ever decreasing marginal utility. The games are not as pleasant as people would like and they are getting more unpleasant. Ticket prices; exorbitant prices for refreshments; dealing with rude and drunk people; women with normal purses are not welcome; parking, traffic and crowds - the "dissatisfiers" are becoming greater than "satisfiers". Games can be expensive and frustrating. Last season, four cities almost did not sell out for home playoff games. The league threatened to blackout TV broadcast of the playoff games for those cities. "Heroes" came to our rescue and all the games eventually sold out. What happens when the greed of the NFL leads to regular blackouts because people no longer have the money or interest in going to games? If a game is blacked out on TV, customers might react by buying more tickets so they don't miss a game. They also might stop watching altogether.
If you stay home and watch on TV, you can have a party, go to a clean bathroom, eat decent food and avoid drunk people throwing beer or vomiting on you. I guess the last one (drunk people) depends on who your family and friends are. You can sit on a couch and watch a big screen HD TV, pause for bathroom and food breaks and when the game is done, you can do anything you want without fighting a crowd.
The recent Ray Rice incident and the NFL response illustrated what everyone already knew about the NFL. It is a misogynistic organization that doesn't really care much about customers. The game is exciting, but brutal. Most retired players have physical damage that lasts the rest of their lives. The league "celebrates" women in October by having players wear pink shoes or gloves. They raffle the used stuff to raise money for breast cancer. Thanks, but is that marketing to women (1/2 of the population) or disingenuous and manipulative? Does the NFL really care if a player slaps around a woman or are they only concerned about the negative PR?
Will the combination of the realization that the NFL isn't the kind of organization that people should believe in and support and the start of and growth of blacked out games because of increasing non-sellout games spell the beginning of the decline of the NFL? Will you continue to be interested when your local team is not on TV for several weeks of the season? Will you continue to watch the terrible Thursday night games? The safety of the players surely doesn't seem to be very important (only three days of rest before a Thursday game) when the league can get another day of revenue for their own TV network. Will women lose interest?
We'll see, but unabated greed usually doesn't end well. There are plenty of things that I can do on a Sunday afternoon if I choose to leave the NFL behind.
