2 hours ago, LeanMeanGM said:

The problem is that play resulted in a fumble, so if they did offset the penalties they would probably rerun the play and the Eagles would miss out on the turnover.

Although the score was 37-6 with 9 minutes left in the game so it probably wouldn't have changed anything.

The rules change when the ball is loose though. He's no longer a passer and things get crazy during a scrum for the ball.

14 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

You realize that adding more teams would mean adding more meaningless games and less value overall. I did point out TNF, specifically, which is not a limited geographical reach.

As I said before knowledgeable fans like you who watch the games with a discerning eye are the vast minority. Most viewers don’t look at the plays/snaps for their overall quality. They are attending a social event in which the actual game is a minor player in the drama.

TNF and MNF are indeed national games, but the other 14 games share the spotlight and the overall audience with one another. Non-competitive games simply get lost in the shuffle, or give way to the social action of the gatherers.

I agree with you that the knowledgeable fans will see a product decline, but they are embedded fans who are going to watch come hell or high water. The audience doesn’t grow in size based on the appeal to the embedded fans. It grows based on getting more fans on the fringes to watch.

The other thing about embedded fans like you and me is that we are going to watch regardless. A marginal decrease in the quality of the game is not going to drive us away.

21 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

The population is higher, but more so the nutrition and training is greatly improved. That doesn't mean they are necessarily more talented.

Okay. Replace the word talented with the word capable.

1 minute ago, mattwill said:

I agree with you that the knowledgeable fans will see a product decline, but they are embedded fans who are going to watch come hell or high water. The audience doesn’t grow in size based on the appeal to the embedded fans. It grows based on getting more fans on the fringes to watch.

I've already seen it and decreased my consumption by a wide margin. I think the betting has made watching crap more palatable.

11 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

I've already seen it and decreased my consumption by a wide margin. I think the betting has made watching crap more palatable.

You have skipped Eagles games? That would surprise if accurate.

13 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

I've already seen it and decreased my consumption by a wide margin. I think the betting has made watching crap more palatable.

So the current game is crap when compared to the game you grew up watching … hmmm.

My take is that the game has never been better. The game I grew up with was much simpler. The quality of the performances on both sides of the ball were inferior to the quality of the performances now.

45 minutes ago, Iggles_Phan said:

The rules change when the ball is loose though. He's no longer a passer and things get crazy during a scrum for the ball.

Correct but then there would be no offsetting penalties.

7 hours ago, LeanMeanGM said:

We’ve seen this already. When Phillies went through the stretch of bad, no one watched and the stadium was empty. Once they got more talent and put out a better product, the average fans took over.

Same thing happened with the Eagles back in the day. The team stunk, the stadium couldn’t sell out and they would black it out on tv.

All good points, and in an individual city what you are saying is true. However, across the league the ups and downs in the overall standings is a zero-sum game. When one team is down that means another team is up. So in the League-wide revenue model the ups and the downs offset one another. Further, the elasticity of fan loyalty says that when a team improves fans come back faster than fans are lost when a team falters.

3 minutes ago, mattwill said:

All good points, and in an individual city what you are saying is true. However, across the league the ups and downs in the overall standings is a zero-sum game. When one team is down that means another team is up. So in the League-wide revenue model the ups and the downs offset one another. Further, the elasticity of fan loyalty says that when a team improves fans come back faster than fans are lost when a team falters.

That's in theory but not necessarily true. This is all besides the point but teams like Dallas can stink the last 30 years and not even make a NFCCG appearance but still have a strong audience.

You can apply it from an individual city to a nationwide audience by simply saying if the product is bad, viewership tends to follow. NBA has had declining ratings because the product isn't what it used to be. If the NFL is putting out a bad product by having more teams, the less people will watch.

I have never met an average fan that watches football just for fun and I don't know why an average fan would watch more if there were more teams they didn't follow or even know much about.

1 hour ago, mattwill said:

As I said before knowledgeable fans like you who watch the games with a discerning eye are the vast minority. Most viewers don’t look at the plays/snaps for their overall quality. They are attending a social event in which the actual game is a minor player in the drama.

TNF and MNF are indeed national games, but the other 14 games share the spotlight and the overall audience with one another. Non-competitive games simply get lost in the shuffle, or give way to the social action of the gatherers.

I agree with you that the knowledgeable fans will see a product decline, but they are embedded fans who are going to watch come hell or high water. The audience doesn’t grow in size based on the appeal to the embedded fans. It grows based on getting more fans on the fringes to watch.

The other thing about embedded fans like you and me is that we are going to watch regardless. A marginal decrease in the quality of the game is not going to drive us away.

Disagree about the social element of regular season games. Playoffs a little, SB, definitely. People watching week after week know crap from good, and in my opinion, that group makes up the majority of viewers in the regular season.

58 minutes ago, mattwill said:

You have skipped Eagles games? That would surprise if accurate.

I have DVR'd games to watch later. So... not exactly, but I used to consume each and every game... 3 on Sundays... and MNF. I might catch an odd MNF now and then. And I skip all TNF except the Kickoff game, as well as the one with the Eagles. I probably watch about 25-30 regular season games these days in a season. I used to watch that many in basically a month or maybe 6 weeks. Discounting the Eagles, I watch only about 1 other game a week... sometimes 0.

1 hour ago, mattwill said:

So the current game is crap when compared to the game you grew up watching … hmmm.

My take is that the game has never been better. The game I grew up with was much simpler. The quality of the performances on both sides of the ball were inferior to the quality of the performances now.

The NFL has crap elements now, absolutely, but the crap generally applies more broadly to the NBA, which I have given up almost entirely.

The NFL kickoff rules are now total and complete crap. The officiating is crap and inconsistent, allowing for the potential for point shaving, game fixing and the like without it being overtly obvious. The rules lean so far to the offense that the defenses struggle to have a chance to compete at times. So yeah, there's some crap in the NFL now.

1 hour ago, mattwill said:

You have skipped Eagles games? That would surprise if accurate.

When the option is doing something with my redhead dream or any NFL game (including the Birds), I choose her. (Thank you, Little Feat). That’s what a DVR and my NFL+ is for. Other than the Eagles, I rarely watch games in real time. And I rarely watch Eagles games when they come on TV. I DVR and wait until after I can fast forward past commercials and halftime. I watch most on mute as I cannot stand what game announcers have become (I blame MNF). I only turn off mute to listen to the ref announce a penalty most of the time (so while the camera coverage is vastly superior to my youth, the rest sucks). Non Eagles games are pretty much delegated to NFL condensed games. Spending 35 minutes watching a game is significantly better that 3 hours of drivel from the like of the announcers. I also watch the All 22 for the Birds and frequently for upcoming opponents.

The game has improved from a team perspective but if Goodell doesn’t stop friggin with the rules, they may loose me entirely. I watch more college ball than NFL. Always have. But now with a DVR, I watch most like I watch Eagles games. When I was young, there was the Oilers on the AFL/AFC channel and the cowpads on the NFL/NFC channel. Then came MNF. There wasn’t the saturation there is today.

Frankly, the NBA lost me a long time ago because they don’t tend to play defense and traveling is a joke in the league. Haven’t watched a basketball game since the Final Four.

1 hour ago, LeanMeanGM said:

That's in theory but not necessarily true. This is all besides the point but teams like Dallas can stink the last 30 years and not even make a NFCCG appearance but still have a strong audience.

You can apply it from an individual city to a nationwide audience by simply saying if the product is bad, viewership tends to follow. NBA has had declining ratings because the product isn't what it used to be. If the NFL is putting out a bad product by having more teams, the less people will watch.

I have never met an average fan that watches football just for fun and I don't know why an average fan would watch more if there were more teams they didn't follow or even know much about.

The average fan in the existing cities wouldn’t. The additional audience would be picked up in the added cities. For instance, if Toronto was one of the expansion cities, does the NFL even broadcast there currently. Similarly St Louis picks up some viewership with KC games being in their "region” and some with Rams games being part of their legacy. But having a home team would produce far more viewers. San Antonio viewers have some allegiance to the Cowboys, but look at how strong the Spurs fanbase is. Here in Sacramento the Niners games are often preceded by "paid programming” rather than broadcast the Fox early game. The same was true for the Raiders and CBS. Who do you think Salt Lake City viewers watch currently? That is where the additional revenue will come from.

1 hour ago, Freshmilk said:

Disagree about the social element of regular season games. Playoffs a little, SB, definitely. People watching week after week know crap from good, and in my opinion, that group makes up the majority of viewers in the regular season.

You and I will have to agree to disagree. Our opinions are colored by the fact that we are knowledgeable fans. The neighborhood get togethers I’ve had experience with have all had an abominable level of football knowledge in the men, and the head count has typically been close to 50/50 men/women. The women were almost all there to socialize. They barely dropped in on the game.

1 hour ago, LeanMeanGM said:

I have never met an average fan that watches football just for fun and I don't know why an average fan would watch more if there were more teams they didn't follow or even know much about.

As I said to FreshMilk the average fans I have observed at Niners watch parties spend more time socializing than actual game watching. And with the kind of drop in, drop out watching they are doing, they really have no idea whether the product is good or bad. Their primary concern is what the score is, or watching the replay of the just accomplished touchdown.

1 hour ago, Iggles_Phan said:

I have DVR'd games to watch later. So... not exactly, but I used to consume each and every game... 3 on Sundays... and MNF. I might catch an odd MNF now and then. And I skip all TNF except the Kickoff game, as well as the one with the Eagles. I probably watch about 25-30 regular season games these days in a season. I used to watch that many in basically a month or maybe 6 weeks. Discounting the Eagles, I watch only about 1 other game a week... sometimes 0.

Do you have kids at home?

48 minutes ago, mattwill said:

You and I will have to agree to disagree. Our opinions are colored by the fact that we are knowledgeable fans. The neighborhood get togethers I’ve had experience with have all had an abominable level of football knowledge in the men, and the head count has typically been close to 50/50 men/women. The women were almost all there to socialize. They barely dropped in on the game.

Yea I don’t think "barely paid attention” is the target audience the NFL is looking for

46 minutes ago, BigEFly said:

When the option is doing something with my redhead dream or any NFL game (including the Birds), I choose her. (Thank you, Little Feat). That’s what a DVR and my NFL+ is for. Other than the Eagles, I rarely watch games in real time. And I rarely watch Eagles games when they come on TV. I DVR and wait until after I can fast forward past commercials and halftime. I watch most on mute as I cannot stand what game announcers have become (I blame MNF). I only turn off mute to listen to the ref announce a penalty most of the time (so while the camera coverage is vastly superior to my youth, the rest sucks). Non Eagles games are pretty much delegated to NFL condensed games. Spending 35 minutes watching a game is significantly better that 3 hours of drivel from the like of the announcers. I also watch the All 22 for the Birds and frequently for upcoming opponents.

The game has improved from a team perspective but if Goodell doesn’t stop friggin with the rules, they may loose me entirely. I watch more college ball than NFL. Always have. But now with a DVR, I watch most like I watch Eagles games. When I was young, there was the Oilers on the AFL/AFC channel and the cowpads on the NFL/NFC channel. Then came MNF. There wasn’t the saturation there is today.

Frankly, the NBA lost me a long time ago because they don’t tend to play defense and traveling is a joke in the league. Haven’t watched a basketball game since the Final Four.

Your Eagles pattern is similar to mine, including the redhead. Where we part is I got rid of my DVD player about a decade ago, and I almost never watch college games.

8 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

Yea I don’t think "barely paid attention” is the target audience the NFL is looking for

As long as the networks are willing to pay for audience size and advertisers are willing to pay the networks for access to that audience, the NFL will be happy. it is all about the commercials.

1 hour ago, mattwill said:

The average fan in the existing cities wouldn’t. The additional audience would be picked up in the added cities. For instance, if Toronto was one of the expansion cities, does the NFL even broadcast there currently. Similarly St Louis picks up some viewership with KC games being in their "region” and some with Rams games being part of their legacy. But having a home team would produce far more viewers. San Antonio viewers have some allegiance to the Cowboys, but look at how strong the Spurs fanbase is. Here in Sacramento the Niners games are often preceded by "paid programming” rather than broadcast the Fox early game. The same was true for the Raiders and CBS. Who do you think Salt Lake City viewers watch currently? That is where the additional revenue will come from.

That’s cannibalizing your current audience. If those viewers are watching other teams, they just switch to watching local teams instead. You aren’t gaining viewers. This is why Goodell and the NFL are focusing on the untapped markets of South America, Mexico and Europe. Eventually Australia too.

1 hour ago, mattwill said:

Do you have kids at home?

Not exactly. My son is 19 now, just came back from college.

1 hour ago, mattwill said:

For instance, if Toronto was one of the expansion cities, does the NFL even broadcast there currently.

You’re asking if the NFL is broadcast to the city who thinks they’re the center of the universe?

Toronto is a crap sports city; they had their audition for a franchise with the Bills series, and attendance dwindled every year.

5 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

That’s cannibalizing your current audience. If those viewers are watching other teams, they just switch to watching local teams instead. You aren’t gaining viewers. This is why Goodell and the NFL are focusing on the untapped markets of South America, Mexico and Europe. Eventually Australia too.

21 minutes ago, LeanMeanGM said:

That’s cannibalizing your current audience. If those viewers are watching other teams, they just switch to watching local teams instead. You aren’t gaining viewers. This is why Goodell and the NFL are focusing on the untapped markets of South America, Mexico and Europe. Eventually Australia too.

A certain amount of cannibalization, but there are plenty of people in those markets who, like BigEFly and Iggles_Phan and me who don’t watch teams other than our "home” team.

If your logic is correct, then the NFL expanding into Houston in 2002 was just cannibalization. But they went ahead with that one.