Blowouts Are Not the NFL's Problem, and Close Games Aren't the Solution

Last night, just as the Atlanta Falcons were completing a game-winning drive at home against the Green Bay Packers, NFL fan Peter King tweeted:

This probably is not the week to be posting those man-the-NFL-stinks stories.
— Peter King (@SI_PeterKing) October 30, 2016

Nine minutes later, NFL PR Guy Brian McCarthy tweeted a very similar message:

Exciting finishes for the late window after some great early games #narrative pic.twitter.com/alTvyrviFD
— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) October 30, 2016

And emphasized the point after Sunday Night Football ended, again with the #narrative hashtag, which I'll leave you to interpret on your own:

What a day of #NFL games w/ 3 going OT. #narrative
— Brian McCarthy (@NFLprguy) October 31, 2016

Yes, it is true the NFL had a slate of particularly closegames this week, with all but four games finishing within one score. But this isn't a counterargument to the league's recent rating struggles or popularity concerns. Very few people seriously believe that NFL ratings have been down because games weren't close. For just one example, Colts–Texans a few weeks back was the second-least-watched Sunday Night Football game in 11 years, but was decided in overtime.

If blowouts were the only problem, then there would be far fewer articles about why NFL ratings were down (not to mention that's not really how sports works—most people decide whether or not to watch a game before it starts). Part of the reason the topic is taking up so much column space is because it's not clear why this is happening, which suggests a greater existential threat to the country's most popular sport. As my colleague David Roth recently posited, maybe it's because the on-field product is increasingly bad, and years of eroding at that successful formula is finally coming home to roost. He didn't mean "bad" in a this-game-was-over-in-the-third-quarter kind of way, but "bad" as in nothing happens for the vast majority of the three-hour broadcast, the rules are difficult and opaque for even the most seasoned fan, and games have little flow or energy due to constant interruptions of one form or another. It's noteworthy if a NFL game is fun and exciting rather than the other way around.

For the better part of a decade, I watched football every single Sunday. I don't anymore, not because of any "off the field" issues—I'm not nearly principled enough for that—but because the actual on-field product, the thing the NFL believes is its best asset, is, on average, not that great. For me, it was a gradual realization over the course of a few years that I was, on average, wasting my time watching football. I'd get to the end of a game and think to myself, "I wish I had done something else." It's hard to break habits and tradition, but after about two years of that, I finally did start doing something else, and I don't regret it. There's no hard-and-fast metric I can pull out to demonstrate to you that, objectively, NFL games are boring or bad, but considering the NFL's ratings this year, I'm not the only one.

This isn't to argue that you, dear reader, should also dislike the NFL. If you like it, I'm glad, and I hope you continue to do so because liking things is fun and good. But I found other things to like, which, I'd conservatively suggest, is also fine.

The more Peter King, NFL PR guys, and other feverishly pro-NFL types dismiss those of us who are tuning into other sports as knee-jerk week-to-week reactionaries, the more they miss the actual problem, which will cost them in the long run. Maybe it already is, which is a shame, because it's a completely fixable problem. As long as they keep insisting that everything is fine, though, nothing will change any time soon. Except for the ratings.