I think the NFL's real problem is structural. The median age of its audience is graying big time. Young people, some call them "Millennial's", just aren't watching.

I'm interested to see how this develops. Millennials get blamed for killing everything, but it's often overblown. I'd like to see what millennials are actually watching. It's pretty obvious soccer has gained in popularity. And a lot of MLB and NBA teams are now selling "pass" style tickets, where you pay less than a season ticket but get guaranteed tickets to every game, delivered to your phone on gameday. I saw the Dolphins were offering a cheaper standing room only ticket this year to try and pull some of that audience in.

If people younger than 35 aren't playing fantasy football at a rate close to the age bracket older, that would be a warning sign.

Have you looked at Disney stock lately? DIS ticker.

ESPN is in free fall. They talk of cord cutters, but my daughter and son are, if I can borrow a cheesy line from a cheesy Disney sports movie that was shamelessly pimping their new hockey team, they are "NEVER WAS". As in, they never had a cord to cut. They are over the top consumers of content, all day, every day. No cords to cut, cause they never subscribed to ESPN in the first place.

Anecdotal to be sure, but there are sure to be more like them.

Absolutely. Yes!


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Yeah, and I don't feel like that's happening, but maybe it is. I get the feeling a lot of people enjoy fantasy football more than the actual games. For some people the NFL only exists to create statistics for fantasy teams.

I ****ing hate those people

Anyone remember the movie, "The last boyscout". The opening music was "Friday nights a good night for football", with the opening scene having a half back making sure he scored a touchdown by pulling out a gun and opening a few holes.

One of my favorite football scenes in movies. lol.

There's little doubt of that. There's a whole other conversation you could have here about young people and their ability to find well paying jobs, student loan debt, etc. And whatever you make of that, it's something that exists. You're eventually going to have to get people who spend 8 bucks a month on TV to drop hundreds on Sunday Ticket.

Plus, there are a lot of people who just genuinely don't give a crap about live TV, even with an antenna. Netflix has created a system where you don't need live TV to be entertained, and there are so many shows being created by TV networks that you can never watch them all. Plus you can watch them whenever you want, without commercials. You aren't bound by a noon kickoff time, and you don't have to sit through 6 minutes of commercials sandwiched around a kickoff that sails through the endzone for a touchback.

Last night was kind of a bell ringer on commercials: the shitty thing about them isn't the length of time they take up as a portion of the broadcast.

It's the ****ING FACT IT'S THE SAME 4-5 COMMERCIALS THAT ARE ANNOYING AS ALL MOTHER OF ****.

ESPECIALLY THAT BUTT****ING AMAZON COMMERCIAL WITH THE TWO BIT SARAH MCGLAUGHLIN VOCALIST AND THE ****ING GOLDEN RETRIEVER BEING TORTURED WITH A FAKE ASS LION'S MANE.

Precisely, so what we have here, is a marketplace that is in flux looking for a new equilibrium, which, due to the long term nature of TV contracts and player salaries will take some time to come into balance.

I honestly cannot see spoiled on air talent protesting against over half their paying audience and NOT having the market react, this in addition tot he other structural long term issues that this market is dealing with. There is an oversupply, as you stated, of substitute product in the entertainment industry.

Yeah, it's pretty infuriating. But all these channels have Fantasy Football experts and are running player stats across the bottom of the screen all day. It's obvious where the $$ is.

Plus all these sports channels have fantasy football leagues on their website. So they can make money off of it too.

Which is why I only watch Free Chiefs games about an hour behind live. zap all the commercials and half time political commentary.

No, you're probably one of a few people that remember that scene!

If I grew up in the real-time internet generation...I wouldn't give a flying **** about sports. They had their place in the 80's-early 90's. There was nothing else to do. It's not Hatfields vs. McCoys anymore.. the geographic rivalries arent important to them. They are playing video games with people from Taiwan, China and Australia...live.

They think sports are stupid...and for the geriatric crowd.