OceanLake:
There's speculation that interest in the NFL is waning. This thread is evidence that that may be so.
I hate to be that guy, but it simply comes down to being informed with the evidence you are looking for, not the truth per se but the nature of your question. Do you mean interest on rpol? The Midwest? England? Yourself? I joke but his information or headline can be used a million different ways with statistics as any good gamer should know the dice system can be designed for Super Heros but in reality work like street fighting. See Marvel Roleplay the 80's original a great story about how the creator almost lost the pitch when Captain America was beat up by 3 street thugs whilst he was trying to sell the idea to TSR. still love that silly simple system.
As for interest in the NFL if you mean dollars and cents this years 4 billion dollar 4 year tv contract is up 12 %, the annual revenue for the league is up above 13 billion dollars (And that is a conservative estimation as the NFL is not for profit and does not disclose much about finically dealings, save the Green Bay Packers which amazingly enough are still a public entity formed back in "Packing Times). 30 second spots for this year are up again at some ridiculous amount. So money wise the interest is in the level of a GDP of some middle range country.
Columnists will point a lot to attendance, and this does go up and down quite a bit, although his number is no really a sensible number for interest in football as most "purists" wach from home with all 16 games flashing live on some 50 inch flat screens. Going to a NFL game has become more of a vacation sized event, billion dollar stadiums are being built,as the experience of the game has over taken the game to many "hard-core" casual fans.
The NFL marketing department has been able to through revenue sharing create and mold a socialistic utopia of insane money making as on a fateful day in the 1960s the original eight owners agreed to share equally the amount of money made from tv. The owners couldn't have know the fate that agreement would cause, instead of creating a Monopoly like most people believe the NFL is meaning the big market teams like New England, Green Bay Dallas run the show (which they do but o a far lesser extent than the other four big five US sporting) meaning the little guys like Seattle, Tampa Bay and even Atlanta which make half of what the Cowboys do today the profit shared from T.V. and al, manner of salary cap "parody" rules on and off the field have created a unique atmosphere where most teams at the start of the season have a much better chance at Winning the Super Bowl (Mostly making the playoffs or at least doing remarkanly better record wise and faster than in other sports in the United States and world.
Also the number of hundreds of millions Super Bowl viewers does fluctuate quite a bit but in a whole is very steady and often used as an indicator for the U.S. Economy much like Black Friday, if this is proof of anything is speculation at best, even the half time shows popularity will spike tv numbers. The NFL provided over 150 jobs annually oo, with undermined amount of revenue do o spillover in airline fairs, hotels and clothing sales.
For those that do not watch football and live in cities were you are taxed at least take comfort that your cities unemployment rate is going to go down and wages and growth will go up. Correlations between new stadiums and teams in any sport moving to a new city are almost always a sign that area of the United States is booming. Take Houston when they received a team agai. the population went from #15 in the US to number # 4. Or the ATL falcons The Who have the next billion dollar Death Star looking stadium has become the countries biggest and busiest airport arguably the best place to open up shop for large corporations and overall a rising city as where Oakland los both the Golden State Warriors and Raiders. The Raiders moving to Vegas right beside the airport ina burgeoning city hoping to become the Pig skinDisneyland and knowing the NFL it will work. I would say ten years from now you could watch a game in Mexico City or London or Both.
The league isn't going anywhere as long as it is married to T.V. It's cinematic design almost a made for television event. It is the new Roman colosseum and I am pretty sure even a live death on the field will not stop the games. There is simply ok much money, a wars worth of money every year. I don't work for the league but I do find connections and trends fascinating, and yes there is the aspect of a horrible meat market to it, I have seen I first hand. But any player being honest will tell you they understood the risks going in, They are our gladiators and they are treated as such. Right or wrong the ieither way if anything the NafL is peaking world wide ina far second is baseball and even farther third but growing even faster than NFL is basketball. Pro soccer world wide makes the NFL look puny although the NGL still ,pmakes more than even Barclays English Football per year.
ALTHOUGH: There is worry to some extent on the Orem of viewing our entertainment as a society. Long gone are the days of the big screen 'televisions and massive couches, or a big loss of them. A huge drop in sport bar attendance. The NFL is attached to a group viewing modality. Younger generations are used to viewing their content on smaller personal devices, and advertising has to keep up as well as media content providers. Every generation wants something different and you either adapt or die. I would be stupid to say there is no way the NFL will not exist in another 51 years. Shut the front door, a lot can happen in 51 years. Well that is my take on the subject, I only bring this up because I am working on a Football meets Lord of the Rings RPG and I can tell you that interest in that is truly waning :)
Please excuse editing posted from mobile device
