The NFL may be the prince of American sports, but there's something rotten in the state of Denmark.
Football is hotter than ever. The TV ratings are breathtaking, attendance is sky-high and media coverage is nearly wall-to-wall, nearly all year 'round. The NFL dominates the sports and entertainment landscape, driving colossal amounts of revenue. Amazingly, the league aims to nearly triple its current rake by 2027.
Per Harris Interactive, 36 percent of adults who follow at least one sport claim pro football as their favorite. College football is tied for second at 13 percent. All Commissioner Goodell has to do is a decent job of minding the store, and the NFL will be on top for good.
That appears to be his aim. As I wrote before, Commissioner Goodell runs the NFL like a monopoly. The NFL has a stranglehold on everything; Goodell wants to keep it that way. He aggressively attacked off-the-field player conduct with a controversial personal conduct policy. He aggressively attacked helmet-to-helmet hits, even as he peddled framed photos of those hits.
Now he's aggressively attacking the New Orleans Saints. In an attempt to eradicate the decades-long practice of defensive players paying each other for big hits, big plays and knocking opponents out of games, he hit the Saints (whose coaches took it way over the line) with unprecedented punishments.
Saints fans took to the street in protest, but to no avail. Goodell, the only one who can hear appeals of the suspensions he imposed, upheld his ruling. Saints fans may have to prepare for a quick return to the "'Aints" days.
In the first installment of Bleacher Report national lead writer Dan Levy's podcast, "Wide Left," he asked CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell who the best commissioner in sports is. Levy and Rovell agreed that it might be Don Garber, commissioner of MLS.
When Garber talks about growing the game, he talks about improving the quality of competition and improving the TV and stadium experience for fans. "I want to see high-quality soccer," Garber told Philly.com. "I want to have that product drive television ratings. I want to see it create the kind of environment and fan connection that we have here in Portland."
Goodell treats these essential aspects of the NFL's product as a given. If he's not careful, his horizon-fixed gaze might miss the problems right under his nose.
The quality of the NFL's TV product is slipping
High velocity, high impact and high definition. Pro football is a perfect match for today's dazzling LCD and plasma displays. The breakneck speed, the bone-crunching hits and the roaring crowds captivate like a Hollywood action flick. Meanwhile, the breaks between plays give time for reaction, analysis and checking Twitter for everything that's happening in the background.
However, the NFL is becoming a victim of its own success. How many of you have screamed at the TV after a sequence like this:
Extra point.
Three-minute commercial break.
Kickoff.
Three-minute commercial break.
One play. Timeout called.
One-minute commercial break.
Two failed plays, punt.
Three-minute commercial break.
When a half-hour of real time is almost 50 percent commercials, and most of the rest is crowd shots, coach spittle and "dramatic" close-ups of the quarterback's eyes, the excitement of the breakneck speed and bone-crunching hits dissipates.
That all presumes you can watch the game.
The NFL's success is partly because of its regular Sunday afternoon time slot. Unlike baseball, basketball and hockey's nearly endless slew of regular-season games, even the busiest American family can carve four hours out of 16 Sundays a year to watch their favorite team.
But with Thursday Night Football on NFL Network, the regular Sunday slate on CBS and FOX, Sunday Night Football on NBC and Monday Night Football on ESPN, games are all over the calendar and all over the digital dial.
Worse, each of those networks has pre-game shows, commentator teams, sideline reporters, post-game highlight crews and weekday breakdown shows. Unlike the tight, focused shows of the '80s and '90s, modern football TV coverage is saturated with former players and coaches with questionable broadcasting skills. With the wealth of quality football information available online, listening to a baker's dozen worth of guys in suits shouting over each other just isn't worth the time.
Worse, as much as football benefits from HD, you're not seeing the whole game. As the Wall Street Journal explained, the NFL prevents fans from seeing camera angles that show all the players on the field at the same time. Goodell and the league say this prevents fans and analysts from wrongly criticizing coaches, but who are they kidding? Coaches have been wrongly (and rightly) criticized by football fans since long before television.
Meanwhile sports like basketball, hockey and soccer all benefit greatly from HD aspect ratios and clarity. The NFL's biggest advantage over competing sports leagues—how it looks on TV—has shrunk dramatically.
The value of the game-day experience is evaporating
Going to an NFL game has never been a richer experience. With state-of-the-art stadiums, incredible food and drink options, monstrous HD video boards and equally astounding audio systems, the old days of sitting behind a concrete pillar are long gone. However, going to the game has never left you poorer.
As Michael Schottey figured out in 2010, an average family of four would need more than $400 to score an average set of NFL tickets, an average NFL program, an average NFL souvenir, feed themselves average NFL food and park their average family truckster. That's beyond the means of many average families, especially more than once or twice a season.
As the NFL continues to reach for the corporate dollar with luxury boxes, club seats and swanky accommodations, they're putting themselves out of reach of the average fan. For that kind of investment, TV's endless commercials and half-baked analysis seem like a bargain.
The NFL doesn't know it yet, but this is also killing future generations' love of the game. Seeing a game live helps the love of a team into a young fan's mind. Being part of the screaming mob, seeing the players up close and in person, standing in awe of the massive stadium itself...that first game is an experience no fan forgets.
If that average family of four never shells out its $400, an entire generation of kids will grow up without any stronger connection to their NFL team than watching it on TV—and again, the NFL is hardly the only sport that looks good in HD.
The integrity of the game is coming into question
The punishment of the Saints is just the most recent issue of inconsistent enforcement of off-field policy. As players and teams get retroactively punished according to rules that didn't exist before they broke them, it's looks like Commissioner Goodell is making it up as he goes along.
On the field, it's the same story. The consistency of officiating is a big, big issue. Per FOXSports.com, referee Jerome Boger assessed 61 holding penalties over 15 games. Meanwhile, Al Riveron worked the same number of games, but called holding only 30 times. Are teams really holding twice as often when Boger works a game?
When referees get critical calls blatantly wrong, it makes everyone question the integrity of the game. Check out this painstakingly produced video of all the inexplicable calls in the Saints' Wild Card game. Put together by The Fix is In, the video highlights some of the really bizarre calls that tilted the field heavily toward the Saints, but missed the capper—the officials let the Saints walk off the field when the Lions should have taken over on downs.
Too many people with too much money and too conflicting interests are involved in the NFL for the games to truly be fixed. However, when basic calls are being missed so badly, the league invites that speculation.
Roger Goodell doesn't see any of this. He visited with a group of Lions fans prior to that game; they asked him why the Lions seemed to be on the wrong end of such unusual officiating so often. Notably, Lions receiver Nate Burleson was called for offensive pass interference an unheard-of three times in the Lions' previous matchup against the Saints. In response, Goodell said NFL referees get "99 percent" of all calls correct.
The question is, were the remaining one percent all bad holding calls by Jerome Boger, or all missed holding calls by Al Riveron?
Roger Goodell must change his focus
None of these issues, individually, is enough to bring down the invincible NFL, but each of them points to a serious oversight on Goodell's part. Collectively, they prove that Goodell is so focused on expansion into American (and global) mainstream culture that he's ignoring fundamental problems with the pillars of his sport's popularity.
All the diverse revenue streams are great, as is the domination of the hearts and minds of college-educated Americans aged 30-39. However, the league is trying to wring every penny it can out of this generation at the expense of future generations' interest.
Bit by bit the NFL is trading competitive quality, mass accessibility and competitive integrity for revenue. Instead of investing in the game to help it grow, the NFL is selling out the future of the game to make more money now.
Let's hope Commissioner Goodell addresses these issues before America bids good night to its sweet prince.
Robbie Eal Joe Callahan Bryan Allen Mark Cullen Baltimore Orioles Boston Red Sox
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