Football attendance

I came across an article today showing loads of empty seats at NFL stadiums.

The Redskins had a reported 20k+ empty seats.
The link shows at least 4 different stadiums with many empty seats.

www.breitbart.com...

I live in northern Indiana and Saturday several people that i know went to Notre dame and purdue games Saturday and they said the bleachers were packed.

I dont know if its price, politics or a combination but the the NFL is having some issues.

a reply to: Bluntone22


I gavce up my Giants tickets because professional sports teams have zero repsect for their fans. Mind numbingly long games, tons of commercial breaks and the moronic flex game where an east coast team doesn't finish their game until after midnight.

I didn't even watch the Giants/Cowgirls game last night.

a reply to: Bluntone22

The redskins are a bad example to use. They suck and have no fan base.

They're stadium is routinely filled with the opposing teams fans. But when they play another garbage team their fans don't show up either.

a reply to: watchitburn

If you look at the link you can see several other stadiums that have empty seats.

But you might be right that the redskins are the worst team to fill seats.
That is kinda odd though.
They are the fourth team in monetary value at $3.1 billion.

a reply to: Bluntone22

This is all anecdotal. I demand to see peer reviewed, double blind studies.

No doubt those photos are edited out of context too.

And unless they're convicted of crimes by Congress, then they're innocent. So another Congressional investigation into them is a waste of tax payer dollars.

i was offered tickets to go, I said No thanks

personally, i blame the Russian bots..not sure how, but yeah, the Russians are to blame

With a pinch of Climate Change

a reply to: SocratesJohnson

I didnt go because one in one million US citizens is a Neo-Nazi, so with 50,000 seats at the stadium the odds were way too high I might get a whiff of Nazi toxic masculinity when I'd go for a piss at the urinal.

They've ruined my life!

a reply to: Bluntone22

All I can speak for is the Bills game.

It was sold out and packed when the game started.

Then, as the Bills continued to lay a giant TURD in the 'ralph', the people got fed up and decided to do something different with their beautiful Sun. afternoon in WNY.

ETA: The time stamp for the Bills picture is 3:58pm. Most people had left the building.

a reply to: stosh64

I feel for you brother. The Bills are in disarray this year. Ralph is spinning in his grave.

As stosh pointed out when are the pics taken? Before the game? Halftime? Late when folks are looking at the drive home?

originally posted by: stosh64
a reply to: Bluntone22

All I can speak for is the Bills game.

It was sold out and packed when the game started.

Then, as the Bills continued to lay a giant TURD in the 'ralph', the people got fed up and decided to do something different with their beautiful Sun. afternoon in WNY.

ETA: The time stamp for the Bills picture is 3:58pm. Most people had left the building.

Even one of the Bills players quit and retired at halftime. The sport is getting weaker all the time.

I still follow NFL news and stream a game or 2 on weekends but no way would I pay to attend an NFL game. Maybe once more when my 5 year old son is a bit older, just to let him have the experience.

a reply to: Bluntone22

Probably because you have to give your first born, left arm, and right peanut in order to take the family. Meanwhile you can get baseball tickets for as low as 15 bucks. Some parks even have deals that include meals and drinks for around 40 bucks a ticket.

I can take my family of 5 to a football game OR for about the same price I can rent a cabin in the mountains by a lake for a week.

a reply to: FauxMulder

College games are expensive too and those stadiums are doing fine.
Might be several factors.

Kneeling players aside, the NFL needs a new commissioner or the league will find themselves in serious trouble. I haven't watched an NFL broadcast in almost 2 full seasons. (Stopped watching in Week 5 of the season after the Broncos won the Super Bowl). The rule changes and nitpicking nonsense Goodell has instituted has killed the pro game in my eyes. This season's lunacy includes the new roughing the passer rule (Like a 300 lb man is supposed to be able to give his all in chasing down the QB while defying the laws of physics and not landing on the passer as he sacks him... WTF kind of stupidity is that?) the leading with the helmet rules have become utterly ridiculous... it's football, you're running and yes, you lead with your damn head most of the time. Plus they're supposedly now saying all receivers are "defenseless" through the entire catch process, meaning no more terminator shots by defenders to break up a catch... it's not football anymore, at least not the football many of us grew up watching and loved so dearly. When you take all of the changes into account and then add in the kneeling foolishness, political activism aspect, and the longstanding tradition of layers behaving badly off the field while seeing dissimilar expectations of behavior from the league office rather than a uniform enforcement policy, the NFL will continue to see fans leaving the product.

a reply to: burdman30ott6

Sounds like Sarcastaball.

a reply to: IgnoranceIsntBlisss

My son and I started watching Australian pro rugby a couple of years ago. He's 12, so he was not thrilled when we stopped watching the NFL. Not surprisingly, he and I both discovered pro rugby is way more violent and fun to watch than the current NFL product. It makes the NFL actually look more like the South Park vision than not.

There are so many things involved with declining ratings and ticket sales.

For ticket sales in particular;

The quality of home entertainment systems, along with peoples increased interest in viewing multiple games at once (for fantasy football) a la NFL redzone, mixed with huge prices fro tickets and concessions must be having an impact on ticket sales.

And in general, I do feel that the kneeling situation has turned some people off of the nfl, but I think that increase in confusing rules, lack of disciplined or physical play, and perhaps even the advent of athletes on social media annoying people (like my guys antonio brown and leveon bell) has led to a declining interest.

In addition, there are other more interactive things to compete for your entertainment time now; such as video games, social media, alternative video producers, etc.

Depsite this and the declining numbers, the NFL still continues to be a hugely lucrative business with very high ratings, but certainly there is a decline.

I haven't gone to an NFL game since 2012 before they built the new 49ers stadium. The drunks were obnoxious and getting sick, the language was really atrocious, the food wasn't very good, and parking was expensive. Most of the posts above do have some validity and now I'm in Texas and not a Cowboy fan. I still follow the games and the news but watch for free and won't pay any more for biased broadcasters. Tonight it's the Seahawks and Bears and neither wants to go to 0-2 as only 11% of teams who do so make the playoffs and my money is on the Hawks unless Mack takes care of Wilson. My best,