The Nfl Needs A Fan’s First Business Model
The National Football League is the most powerful and lucrative product in the sports industry. Nothing else comes close to this multi-billion dollar giant; not baseball, not basketball and sure as hell not NASCAR. The NFL has become a sports dynasty that has weighed and measured its competition and found it to be lacking. Now, that is not to say that there is no room for improvement, quite the contrary, the way I see it the NFL is in serious need of a face lift. Maybe a little tummy tuck for a league that has grown fat and arrogant during its time on top of the sports world. Today’s economy will start making fans reconsider where to spend their hard earned dollars, that is not an opinion, it is a fact. If the NFL continues to operate with the pompous swagger that has defined this league for the past decade, well, there are cheaper alternatives to distract and entertain the public. So, listen up Roger Goodell and the rest of the empty suits in the NFL, it is time for some modifications to your current business model, it is time for the Fans First Approach.
No More Football on the NFL Network
Forcing people to shell out extra cash for expanded cable or Direct TV just so they can watch the Steelers play the Browns on a Thursday is cruel. Obvious, you can regain some extra coin by doing it but, does that mean it should be done? It speaks to the level of arrogance within the NFL itself when they make that kind of a decision knowing chubby well that the average football fan cannot afford to pay upwards of $100 a month for those kind of unnecessary expenses. The league’s popularity was primarily based on its accessibility, now it is becoming something that only the more wealthy among us can enjoy full time. Monday Night Football is on cable now, too. What’s next, will regular Sunday football become pay-per-view? The NFL could strike a deal with TNT or TBS where they point to a Thursday night game on a more widely viewed channel. Make something like; The NFL Network Game of the Week on TBS. You get the idea. Making your league more exclusive is not a recipe for continued dominance.
We Come to the Games for the Players, Not the Uniforms
The NFL is notorious for handing out fines for anything but, they are most famous for handing out fines for violations of the uniform dress code. If a player makes the egregious mistake of wearing socks that are not league approved he can go ahead and fork over anywhere between $5,000-$10,000. Conversely, if a player commits a serious flagrant personal foul (grabbing another players face mask and violently twisting that players neck at a hazardous angle, for instance) they can look forward to fines of around the same value and sometimes less. Earth to NFL: If I came to a game to watch uniforms I would just watch marching bands all day. The NFL is so sterile now. A little bit of character can earn a player a lot of grief from the league offices. This trend has got to halt. Allowing your players some leeway to be more personable is not a bad thing.
If Pre-Season Games Do Not Count, Why Do They Cost the Same?
This particular transgression flat out pukes me. Why would I pay full price to see half-rate football? The answer is; I don’t, but others do! Why do people cough up $100 to see a team’s stars for ten minutes of game time (maybe) and then fifty minutes of watching soon-to-be car salesman? Ugh. This is even more reprehensible in the fresh economy when the price of a football ticket is so high and the average American is finding that a dollar does not stretch as far as it ragged to. Ticket prices should judge the caliber of the play on the field and the importance of the game itself.
Your Fan Base is in America, Folks
I understand that the NFL is a big corporation and like any corporation they want to expand into new markets. My only problem is that when you ship one or two games a year to Japan and Europe you are spitting in the face of the cities who claim those teams. The people that root for these teams are the reason that your league is so powerful. Japan and Europe have no stake in the NFL, they could care less about our sport; we are the ones who care. The NFL needs to understand that without rabid domestic fans they cannot get those cushy advertising packages and hefty television deals from FOX, CBS and ESPN.
American football does not have the same wide appeal as basketball or even baseball. Keeping the sport accessible to a wider audience here in the United States is a better model for longterm success then chasing corporate dollars in foreign countries. Loyal fans span generations, corporations can be gone in the blink of an view. Look at a sport like Major League Baseball and utilize them as a cautionary tale. Baseball lost a lot of its relevance when they chased down advertising dollars instead of tailoring their sport to the people who made the advertisements possible…the fans.
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Filed under Tummy Tuck by on Feb 4th, 2011. 