Why The NFL?

There are three or four great months for watching sports on TV during the year. In October you have baseball playoffs, you have tour championships in golf, the NBA and the NHL are kicking off their seasons, NCAA football is in full swing, and of course the behemoth, the NFL, is hitting their stride. April is another good month while January has its share of great things going on. There are other months when the sports calendar is exciting but none of it is as important to viewers as when the NFL is playing.

Television viewers seemingly cannot get enough of the NFL on TV. Unlike almost every other sport, the NFL gets more casual viewers watching their games. Other sports have seen their viewing numbers rise also but it is mainly with local broadcasts where fans are heavily tuned in to see their favorite team play.

I have wondered for a few years what is it about the NFL that makes it so different and my pea brain has finally figured it out. Gambling. The NBA has more money gambled on it over the course of a year but they have eighty-two regular season games per team while the NFL only has seventeen per team. Soccer is far and away number one worldwide but not here. The Super Bowl generates the most single day volume of gambling each year with over $20 billion dollars bet on that game alone, and that doesn't count all the pools done on the side by fans.

The NFL and NCAA football generate over $75 billion yearly in bets, and again, that doesn't include all the illegal side betting. Throw in the gigantic number of fantasy football leagues and it is easy to see why football is so popular for viewing fans. It is the only sport I can think of where people watch even if their favorite team isn't playing. Hell, many sports networks have entire shows dedicated just to fantasy sports betting.

Hockey, baseball, golf, and other NCAA sports get their share of eyes watching them nightly but none of them can generate numbers like the NFL. Recently women's sports has grown by 2000% for the number of people tuning in to watch and even on their best night they have fewer viewers than a men's golf tournament and golf is like a pimple on a fly's ass compared to hockey which is smaller than a pimple on baseball's ass and baseball is the fifth most watched sport here.

There are a hundred different reasons out there as to why football has become the sport of our nation. As a kid growing up it used to be said that if you really wanted to understand the American people you needed to understand baseball, the national sport. That is far from true today and even if you understand football you really don't understand the American people. We have devolved into a quagmire of ideological politics, hate, and me-ism. Even we don't understand us anymore.

Football, back in the 1970's, made a bold decision to market itself to a new fan base. One that had no team loyalty in another sport but was looking to assimilate themselves into the American culture. Football said, hey come watch us, we love you.

They held local events to teach women about the game generating a huge new fan base. They merged two struggling leagues into one gigantic league that got them massive TV contracts from networks that were shut out of baseball and launched a fledging network in FOX TV in the 1990's and ESPN in the 1980's by making them a partner in their game coverage. This was a long game plan to over take baseball for the hearts of fandom in the US and they executed their plan flawlessly.

Every other sport has been racing to try to catch them since with no success. Today with broadcast television struggling to stay relevant the NFL has quickly, and quietly, started moving towards streaming as a way to reach younger fans who get 100% of their viewing from various streaming services. And they aren't alone. The NHL and MLB have been moving their games to streaming services for the past three years now hoping to grab some of those younger viewers for themselves. It is likely that local cable and over the air coverage of sports will be a relic of the past like black and white tv in the next few years.

So while you are enjoying the next six weeks of football on your favorite cable channel and are investing your hard earned cash in your favorite football pools and/or bookie, keep in mind that the NFL is a big reason why you are investing your time and cash in their sport. They trained you to do this.