What would it take for you to stop watching football?

[chasa]

Looks like ill be DVRing all the games this season and watching them after they have compeleted. Fast forwarding through all the extra point attempts, penalties, and commericials.

 

[Haley]

If the sport continues to degrade in quality, I will likely stop watching it closely once Brady/BB both retire. I may occasionally turn on the games for background but I won't be interested in it like I am now. I'll fade into "casualness" and if more terrible changes are added to the game, I won't be able to recognize it as the same sport anymore. I won't understand why one team won and one lost anymore, which takes all the fun out of it.

 

[SB39]

Unwatchable games with obscenely unbalanced rules, and it's all for the money brought in because of the casual viewer and fantasy football.

So put up or shut up: If the games are so unwatchable then quit watching them.

But you don't have the self discipline to do that.

Like baseball, basketball and hockey, they're selling out the core fans in the quest for more revenue.

Actually baseball's problem is the opposite. Baseball is suffering because they pander too much to their core fans and lose the casuals. They are too slow to change their sport because they are afraid of upsetting the core fan "traditionalists" out there. It's 2014 and they just finally implemented wide ranging instant replay.

Everyone on the planet agrees the games need to speed up but the league is terrified of doing anything that would result in any sort of substantive change. That's pandering to core fans and ignoring the casuals, not vice versa.

 

[PatsWickedPissah]

Your point is almost undoubtedly correct. Unfortunately, it doesn't fit the narrative, and thus it will not be mentioned. Like the misleading press releases claiming fans want a bigger playoff field or longer season, the NFL will just keep lying as it attempts to have its way and make its money. Not one penny is to be allowed to escape.

The sports press has become so beholden to the game and teams that it rarely (except say in Boston where there's a Red Sox vs Pats vendetta at the Globe) takes a more than occasional outlier article criticizing league policy.

 

[RecoveringCowboy]

Another ten years of Goodell.

Note this is before DeflateGate.

You, sir are a prophet.

 

[phil112]

In answer to the OP, rigging the results. If I want entertainment with a known outcome I will watch movie reruns or wrestling.
If goodell wins against Brady, that will prove where the NFL is headed with goodell because all this is, is an attempt to control the outcome. He wants someone besides the Patriots and Brady in the winners circle.
If goodell wins and doesn't get fired, then I'm gone, in all likelyhood.
The bias in enforcing rules does nothing more than allow control of naming winners. I fear that is where we're headed.

 

[corruptgoddell]

Agree with the post above. My interest has went from a strong 10 to a 6. Football is supposed to be entertainment and a distraction from everyday life, but when the product is rigged, no reason to bother being that passionate about it. God-Dell might think he's doing what the rest of the league and their fanbases want, but even some Pats haters think he's going overboard, and if their team wins a couple Super Bowls, the same thing could happen to them.

Also, a few things to expect this upcoming season:

- Deflategate talk during every Pats broadcast - and some non-Pats broadcasts. Super Bowl 49 Michaels/Collinsworth type talk on steroids.

- Excuses and subtle digs from every team that loses to the Patriots.

- More questionable officiating.

- When the Pats are in the playoffs, more accusations of cheating to try to distract them and discredit them even if they win.


This is supposed to be a man's sport and if you lose, you're supposed to lose with class, not make up excuses and try to discredit the team that won.

I'll watch all 16 plus games because I'm a Patriots fan, but won't be watching a single game the Pats aren't playing in or paying attention to national pre-game talk or local talk that isn't Curran or Reiss.

 

[VJ11]

Reality is that concussions and brain damage due to frequent head-to-head contact over a long time are important factors for the health of players. This has to be dealt with by altering tackling and blocking techniques as well as rules concerning this type of contact. But it has to be done in such a way that it doesn't take away from the nature of the game. Contact/hitting is part of that and should be preserved. If full-contact football starts to resemble flag football, where you can't hit and run over people, they might as well stop playing. Then I will stop watching football.

 

[patgirl10688]

death.