Relocation's impact on NFL popularity

[CGI_Ram]

Okay... I need to be careful framing this topic to keep it from becoming about the cities involved... instead the topic is about; has the NFL underestimated the impact of relocation to its fan base?

A survey by ESPN claims half of the US population are NFL fans. Half equals 160 million.

The metro area population of STL, SD, and OAK are as follows;

STL 2.8MM
SD 3.1MM
OAK 3.0MM

It's a little hard to pin down the Oakland number because it is usually grouped with San Francisco.

Regardless...

That's about 9MM. Half equals 4.5 million.

4.5MM is about 3% of 160MM from ESPN's survey.

Where am I going...?

3% seems like a dangerous number of fans to piss off. I'm not predicting doom and gloom for the NFL, but thats a big kick to the teeth of some of their customers.

Even if my stats are off, and we should include international fans... or use Nielsen ratings for market size... or offset the losses by gains in the new markets... any way you slice it a LOT of paying customers impacted. More than the NFL has ever seen.

Will the NFL see a tipping point with fans, and if so, could the slide in ratings continue?

Rather than this topic turn into another exchange about cities or greedy owners, I'm more curious your thoughts on if this impacts the NFL ratings and popularity?

 

[tempests]

TBH, I thought it was worse in the 1980s and 90s. Seven teams relocated in 15 years, and Seattle would've been the eighth when they unilaterally announced they were moving to LA, without a vote and after the resolution to turn control of the LA market to all 30 owners.

Fans in abandoned markets have long memories, but many of them won't swear off the NFL altogether. Some will follow the same team, some will find other teams and down the line, the NFL may yet return.

I really only see two factors that could put a dent in the NFL's popularity;

-As Mark Cuban suggested, oversaturation, ex. playing NFL football on Wednesday or Saturday, offseason coverage, expanded playoffs, regular season, stretching out a compact window. Too much of a good thing, in other words, and good business turns into bad business.
-Labor strife, if a lockout or strike wiped out an entire season or the Super Bowl. That's highly unlikely, but if it were to happen, I believe the NFL would take a long time to recover, if it ever did.

 

[LesBaker]

Good topic.

IMO it has had an effect. I live in SWFL, one of the most seasonal areas in the USA. People that live here full time are from all over the country and seasonal/snowbirds are from all over too.

The most recent moves don't sit well with a lot of fans, and rightfully so. Casual conversation with fans of a variety of teams all point to a few things. Refs, long games because of commercials, oversatuaration, handling of domestic violence and other stuff.

Relocation really pisses people off, across the board too..........not to say there aren't a lot of converging drivers that are pissing off fans because there are many. The NFL has managed to put a lot of downward pressure on itself and IMO is badly managed.

The NFL has become greedy, too greedy for most peoples tastes. Owners are in large part unpopular because it's clear that all but a few care only about the revenue and nothing else. Winning for the fans, treating the fans well, making the game accessible are all meaningless to almost all of them. They just don't give a fuck and it's now just become so obvious and so in your face that it's hurting them. What happened in STL, SD and OAK simply highlights how they are all to willing to shit on fans. We all feel for the fans in those towns. I lived in Cleveland when the Browns moved, it was horrible and a near out of body experience for the area.

It has an effect on everyone. Even someone that is well to do and can easily afford to pay the NFL's game day prices doesn't like to be fleeced, but they pay (though NOT gladly) because they are die hard fans. Die hard fans are feeling ripped off, and that's bad for business. But the NFL doesn't care and it shows.

Attendance and ratings are down. In part because fans of teams that didn't move saw their peers get fucked over for money. It would be one thing if there were valid reasons for a team to leave a city, but there isn't really a valid reason every owner is making tons of money and none need to move. The fans are getting fed up with franchise owners and Roger Goodell. When he claimed that his goal was to get the NFL to 25BIL in revenues he would have been better served keeping his mouth shut. I don't know a single fan that was happy to hear that.

 

[DaveFan'51]

The metro area population of STL, SD, and OAK are as follows;

STL 2.8MM
SD 3.1MM
OAK 3.0MM

Looking at this^ makes me wonder, What is the Population of Los Angeles!? Because you have L.A, the City, then you have Los Angeles the County which is HUGE!!

 

[Psycho_X]

It would be one thing if there were valid reasons for a team to leave a city, but there isn't really a valid reason every owner is making tons of money and none need to move. The fans are getting fed up with franchise owners and Roger Goodell. When he claimed that his goal was to get the NFL to 25BIL in revenues he would have been better served keeping his mouth shut. I don't know a single fan that was happy to hear that.

The whole post was good but this inparticular is how I feel about today's NFL. The pure blatant disrespect the NFL has shown and obvious money grabs has been disheartening.

For me personally, I'm not giving the NFL anymore of my money. I'm one of the few people I know around this area who was a Rams fan and still is. Most of them don't like that I still cheer for them and don't understand why I do. Most have stopped watching games regularly. But while I still have a strong interest in the team and how it does I will not be giving the NFL more money. I dropped directv/nfl package and switched to kodi. I stopped buying gear. I've enjoyed the extra income every month actually.

As far as ratings go the NFL needs to advance into the current streaming meta quickly and they'd make a lot of money doing it. They screwed up reupping with directv for as long as it did. They are tunneling their service through a dying medium. If/when the day comes they finally offer a streaming package not attached to a shitty third party like directv I'll think about buying it again. But that's a ways away thanks to their contract. Until then i'm perfectly fine watching games other ways.

 

[bnw]

There are various things that will impact the NFL ratings and thus popularity.

Regionally:

Financially pissing off a fanbase that is still $100 million in debt and was willing to go another $500 million in debt to keep a woeful excuse of a team.

Direspecting a fanbase by pursuing a dog and pony show process costing the city more millions of dollars when the NFL knew it would not make a difference.

Spewing bullshit that the city cannot financially support an NFL team when it clearly has and has also always supported both MLB and NHL teams.

Nationally:

The thug nation mentality that has pervaded the players and has carried over to assaults and even murder at games.

Outrageous ticket prices that keep a game out of reach for most families.

A horrible TV product completely divested from a local team. Each week you have to suffer through some tag team moron announcers who know far less about your team than you do.

For those paying for the Direct TV Sunday Ticket you get lots of shitty uninformed announcers to choose from and when the game is over......it is over! No post game show for your team. Just a big dumbass lame NFL logo.

A TV broadcast that is run by commercials rather than the on field product. The game viewing experience on TV from the perspective of analysis during the game has gone to shit over the last 40 years. All the viewing angles and replays and closeups are at best lipstick on that pig.

The halftime show is moronic. I'd rather watch cheerleaders and the on field halftime show or vendors launching bags of peanuts or pouring cups of beer than the panel of monosyllabic cliche programmed fucktards yammering on every network about every game except the one you're watching. I don't give a fuck about fantasy football. I have a life.

Games should start later in the day. 10 am starts are stupid. 1 pm ET starts are stupid. Games should start at 4 pm ET for the midwest and east, 1 pm PT for the west. Thursday night games are stupid.

 

[Loyal]

Looking at this^ makes me wonder, What is the Population of Los Angeles!? Because you have L.A, the City, then you have Los Angeles the County which is HUGE!!

It's bigger than that...I always considered North of Camp Pendleton and south of the Grapevine as LA area.....

 

[DaveFan'51]

It's bigger than that...I always considered North of Camp Pendleton and south of the Grapevine as LA area.....

As a former Marine, who use to Travel from Camp Pendleton Home to the San Fernando Valley each week-end, I concur!!

 

[Loyal]

I think we all have/had an unrealistic idea that team owners ever cared more about the fans, than a profit. Profit has always been the number one objective, which part of that meant growing the brand. Giving the illusion of caring for the fans was good for business....and business has been good for a very long time. The way we consume the NFL is changing, and some of that consumption is not being tracked as well. I used to get NFL Sunday Ticket, until I could not justify the cost, and online streaming became better. Also, fans are not tied to the geographical location anymore...

It's still the best sport to watch for me, and there is no close 2nd to the NFL.

 

[Loyal]

As a former Marine, who use to Travel from Camp Pendleton Home to the San Fernando Valley each week-end, I concur!!

Dang, for a jar-head you're purdy smart!:rockon:

 

[LesBaker]

The whole post was good but this inparticular is how I feel about today's NFL. The pure blatant disrespect the NFL has shown and obvious money grabs has been disheartening.

For me personally, I'm not giving the NFL anymore of my money. I'm one of the few people I know around this area who was a Rams fan and still is. Most of them don't like that I still cheer for them and don't understand why I do. Most have stopped watching games regularly. But while I still have a strong interest in the team and how it does I will not be giving the NFL more money. I dropped directv/nfl package and switched to kodi. I stopped buying gear. I've enjoyed the extra income every month actually.

As far as ratings go the NFL needs to advance into the current streaming meta quickly and they'd make a lot of money doing it. They screwed up reupping with directv for as long as it did. They are tunneling their service through a dying medium. If/when the day comes they finally offer a streaming package not attached to a crappy third party like directv I'll think about buying it again. But that's a ways away thanks to their contract. Until then i'm perfectly fine watching games other ways.

I haven't purchased any gear for probably 15 years. I'm right next to you, I won't give them any of my money other than the times I flew to STL to see a game and for the last several years I really went more to hang out with fellow posters from the Herd. I drove to Tampa a couple of times to see them and met some people from here which was the larger reason for me to go. I watch games online.

I agree with you on that last part there........I'm going to go one step further and tell you how the NFL will get part of the 25BIL they are targeting.

Pay per view on your smart TV, laptop, desktop, tablet or phone. And I believe they will have their own service or channel that hosts it. One day the TV money will top out and they will have no other choice. This will happen in our lifetime.

 

[dieterbrock]

The NFL grows in popularity every year and if they figured out how to count streaming towards viewership that would be up too.

 

[Merlin]

It has little to do with the moves in my opinion.

I think it's all about how many commercials there are, game stoppages to review everything to the point of insanity, etc. Any game in the modern era is going to have to keep an eye on the "flow" of their product and the NFL has made a lot of changes that did not take that factor into consideration.

There are things they can do like adding a transparent banner at the bottom of the screen to make up for the lesser commercials and stoppages, if they ever do realize what their problem is. And I do think they're on the right track given some recent comments by the league owners on this topic.

But moves? No man. Take a look at the sports world in the US, the history of it. Teams move. It's what they do. It's a business.

 

[Ram65]

Looking at this^ makes me wonder, What is the Population of Los Angeles!? Because you have L.A, the City, then you have Los Angeles the County which is HUGE!!

It close to 10 Million in LA County. So maybe they gained some more fans or broke even.
https://suburbanstats.org/population/california/how-many-people-live-in-los-angeles-county

 

[Ram65]

They need to build stadiums with longer shelf lives. It's crazy money to build an NFL stadium. Owners will have no choice but, to help build stadiums as the price tag will continue to go up. No city or state can fill the entire bill. Owners may even have to find their own financing for the entire build.

The NFL seems to roll on making money hand over fist. Rams, Chargers and Raiders moves shouldn't have much effect. They may have a net gain. The Raiders have moved before and always have a big following. Now, they will have better revenue to stay competitive. LA is a stranger market because you need teams to win or fans will find something else to do. Still it's a big market and SD is still close enough that the Charger games will be air in SD.

www.google.com/search?q=minnisota+vikings+staduim+funding&oq=minnisota+vikings++staduim+funding&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l2.17791j0j7&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
On May 10, 2012, the Minnesota Legislature approved funding for a new Vikings stadium on that site. The project is projected to have a $975 million price tag, with the Vikings covering $477 million, the state covering $348 million, and $150 million covered by a hospitality tax in Minneapolis.

 

[Dagonet]

TBH, I thought it was worse in the 1980s and 90s. Seven teams relocated in 15 years, and Seattle would've been the eighth when they unilaterally announced they were moving to LA, without a vote and after the resolution to turn control of the LA market to all 30 owners.

Fans in abandoned markets have long memories, but many of them won't swear off the NFL altogether. Some will follow the same team, some will find other teams and down the line, the NFL may yet return.

I really only see two factors that could put a dent in the NFL's popularity;

-As Mark Cuban suggested, oversaturation, ex. playing NFL football on Wednesday or Saturday, offseason coverage, expanded playoffs, regular season, stretching out a compact window. Too much of a good thing, in other words, and good business turns into bad business.
-Labor strife, if a lockout or strike wiped out an entire season or the Super Bowl. That's highly unlikely, but if it were to happen, I believe the NFL would take a long time to recover, if it ever did.

I use to really dig the 2 weeks of Saturday games in the past myself. I was sorry to see them go. Everything else is spot on.

 

[LesBaker]

There are things they can do like adding a transparent banner at the bottom of the screen to make up for the lesser commercials and stoppages

That's actually a great idea! But the NFL would just add it in versus taking out commercials, it's the greed factor at work.

But moves? No man. Take a look at the sports world in the US, the history of it. Teams move. It's what they do. It's a business.

If we look at the last quarter century that doesn't hold up though.

At least in the Big Three of the NBA, MLB and the top dog NFL. The NHL is almost irrelevant I think.

Teams that relocated in the NBA.......3

MLB.......1 since 1973.

NFL.......7 or 8.

So the NFL has let a lot of movement happen in the last 25 or so years, which is when sports as a "business" has really taken off.

The Cardinals, Raiders, Raiders again, Raiders yet again, Oilers, Rams, Rams again, Chargers, Colts, Browns.

The NFL leads all sports in money grabs and it's not even close.

 

[threesox84]

Looking at this^ makes me wonder, What is the Population of Los Angeles!? Because you have L.A, the City, then you have Los Angeles the County which is HUGE!!

LA proper is 3.9 million, LA county is almost exactly 10 million and the Greater LA area is over 18 million. If even 20% of those folks become new NFL fans that would be around 4.5 million, pretty much the same number of fans they more of less pissed off in the three abandoned markets.

Not sure what any of this info actually means, just thought I'd toss 'er out there.

 

[Zodi]

There are various things that will impact the NFL ratings and thus popularity.

Regionally:

Financially pissing off a fanbase that is still $100 million in debt and was willing to go another $500 million in debt to keep a woeful excuse of a team.

Direspecting a fanbase by pursuing a dog and pony show process costing the city more millions of dollars when the NFL knew it would not make a difference.

Spewing bullcrap that the city cannot financially support an NFL team when it clearly has and has also always supported both MLB and NHL teams.

Nationally:

The thug nation mentality that has pervaded the players and has carried over to assaults and even murder at games.

Outrageous ticket prices that keep a game out of reach for most families.

A horrible TV product completely divested from a local team. Each week you have to suffer through some tag team moron announcers who know far less about your team than you do.

For those paying for the Direct TV Sunday Ticket you get lots of crappy uninformed announcers to choose from and when the game is over......it is over! No post game show for your team. Just a big dumbass lame NFL logo.

A TV broadcast that is run by commercials rather than the on field product. The game viewing experience on TV from the perspective of analysis during the game has gone to crap over the last 40 years. All the viewing angles and replays and closeups are at best lipstick on that pig.

The halftime show is moronic. I'd rather watch cheerleaders and the on field halftime show or vendors launching bags of peanuts or pouring cups of beer than the panel of monosyllabic cliche programmed fucktards yammering on every network about every game except the one you're watching. I don't give a freak about fantasy football. I have a life.

Games should start later in the day. 10 am starts are stupid. 1 pm ET starts are stupid. Games should start at 4 pm ET for the midwest and east, 1 pm PT for the west. Thursday night games are stupid.

We need to get this man into an NFL Owners meeting, stat. Great post.