Are you ready for some football? Me too! Can’t wait for the season to get underway. with that being said, former NFL quarterback Troy Aikman believes that the sport that made him famous could soon experience a decline due to overexposure.<\/p>\n
He recently said in the Los Angeles Times, “Monday Night Football was a big event. Now you get football Sunday, you get it Monday, you get it Thursday and, late in the year, you get it on Saturday.You talk about the ebbs and flows of what’s popular and what’s not. At some point, the TV ratings are not going to be there.”<\/p>\n
There has also been a lot of other conversation lately regarding all of the rule changes to make the sport less violent. Some believe that all of these changes will disrupt the way the game is played, and in turn, will somehow make the game less popular. Is the sport destined to face a decline? If so, why?<\/p>\n
Short answer – probably. Football will most likely face a decline. It’s at the height of popularity and what goes up must come down. However, this isn’t due to overexposure or hefty penalties being levied due to illegal hits. It’s about power. As a country we love to witness displays of power and if you look at the most popular sports in America, there’s a direct correlation between viewership and the amount of power being showcased.<\/p>\n
Boxing, for example, used to be the most popular sport in America. The 60s and 70s gave us the Golden Age of Heavyweights. We got to experience the excitement of fighters like Ali, Frazier, George Foreman and Ken Norton. When the most powerful athletes in the world were in the ring, anything could happen and people were drawn to it. Mike Tyson is another perfect example of this. Between the Ali and Tyson eras we had guys like Larry Holmes. A solid champion who fought very safe. Nobody cared. We want knockouts. Heavywight championship boxing today is a jabbing contest and barely worth mentioning.No power,no fans.<\/p>\n
Baseball is without question down in popularity right now (no matter what the Commissioner tries to tell you). The sport faces some challenges in that the game itself doesn’t lend itself to change. The last huge popularity spike was during the home run record chase in 1997 between Sammy Sosa and Mark McGuire. Power. There’s a reason the sport had turned a blind eye to steriods. Fans like power hitting and power pitching. Now that they’ve been forced to test more frequently, home runs are down. Now the sport is at a point where perfect games are becoming more common. The casual fan lets out a huge yawn.<\/p>\n
Basketball ebbs and flows a lot in popularity but has been increasing slowly since 2007. This is due, in part to increased star power but also to changes in defensive rules being implemented since 2004. It’s very much a scoring driven league now since the game has been “opened up”. Lots of scoring, lots of driving to the rim and most importantly, lots of big dunks. Power.<\/p>\n
This brings us back to professional football. It’s a great sport at the height of it’s popularity but as happens with all #1 sports, it’s bound to come back down. Most likely greed will be what creates the downturn (just ask any former NFL season ticket holder). Making the game “softer” to decrease injury-based lawsuits will continue to undoubtedly frustrate some fans and players. There will continue to be less big hits (displays of power) but fortunately for football, there’s still plenty of power to go around. Football will face a decline but it will take a long time. Last year’s Super Bowl had 111.3 million viewers in the United States. This was the most-watched television show U.S.history. The second most watched – last years Super Bowl.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Are you ready for some football? Me too! Can’t wait for the season to get underway. with that being said, former NFL quarterback Troy Aikman believes that the sport that made him famous could soon experience a decline due to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":177,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n