I didn't see this mentioned anywhere, but there was a major change in the NFL blackout rule recently. In response to declining ticket sales (they've gone down each of the past 5 years, and are 4.7% lower than they were in 2007), according to the Wall Street Journal, One thing this means is that fewer blackouts this year in places like Cincinnati, Miami, Buffalo, and Tampa doesn't necessarily mean that attendance is actually better. It's also good news for companies like CBS (in Miami) and Budweiser (in Carolina and Jacksonville) who paid 34 cents on the dollar to buy up tickets to avoid blackouts last year. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303561504577495083707417526.html
Makes sense. The home experience kicks ass compared to the stadium one. Plus the NFL owners make way more money from TV revenue than stadium revenue.
The NFL on TV should no longer be tied to ticket sales at all. The vast majority of NFL fans attend less than a game a year. They basically go when tickets fall in their laps or a team they grew up rooting for comes into town and they can afford the tickets. When games are blacked out they just don't watch the games. The value of the TV exposure goes down when that exposure is no longer available in the local markets, particularly for struggling teams. In that light there's no rational reason to tie TV exposure to ticket sales. It should be the other way around. The NFL should use full broadcasts as a promotional tool to get people to come out to the field for games. They should squeeze the maximum price out of the TV rights and the ticket prices and they should let the chips fall where they will. When a team doesn't draw enough fans to the field it will move somewhere where the fans are more willing to come out and watch the live experience.
I love going to a ballpark to see a baseball game. I love going to an arena to see a basketball/hockey game. I don't personally enjoy going to football games. I prefer to watch it at home on my beautiful big HDTV.
The prices dont even compare to. I can get into yankee stadium for 7$ on Stubhub while for a Jets game the cheapest tickets come at $50+. I actually enjoy football games live more than Baseball. I feel like the crowd is ALOT more into football games.
Id love to go to every game if it was accessible (ie like going to a Knicks game). But sitting in a shit ton of traffic, then taking over an hour to get out of the parking lot if the game is even remotely close. Its just not worth the headache. That without a doubt is by far the biggest problem with going to an nfl game imo. Obviously because of NY, and the location of our stadium, makes that more difficult. As im sure its gotta be alot easier to get to some of these other stadiums. Then again blackouts definitely arent referring to NY teams anyway
I like going to one game per season. Anything more than that is too much for me. Sometimes I say how I'd love to get season tickets, but then I go through the whole day and feel like crap by the end and then it takes two and a half hours to get home and I change my mind.
No doubt. I try to hit one game a year as well. It's always a hassle and you need like 5 hours of extra time at least, not even including the game time. The game itself is a blast while you're in the stadium watching, but I like being able to pop it on in the comfort of my home and rewind plays, fast forward commercials, etc without several hours of preparations. I only live about a half hour / 40 mins from the stadium, but there's so much traffic it doesn't matter. TV deals and advertising is where the real money is, not just from physical tickets, blacking out games because they don't sell enough tickets is silly and just punishes fans for something they might not have control over.
