Let's chat about the National Football League. This week's schedule (all times Eastern):
Sun 2024-10-06 9:30AM New York Jets @ Minnesota Vikings
Sun 2024-10-06 1:00PM Buffalo Bills @ Houston Texans
Sun 2024-10-06 1:00PM Carolina Panthers @ Chicago Bears
Sun 2024-10-06 1:00PM Cleveland Browns @ Washington Commanders
Sun 2024-10-06 1:00PM Indianapolis Colts @ Jacksonville Jaguars
Sun 2024-10-06 1:00PM Miami Dolphins @ New England Patriots
Sun 2024-10-06 1:00PM Baltimore Ravens @ Cincinnati Bengals
Sun 2024-10-06 4:05PM Arizona Cardinals @ San Francisco 49ers
Sun 2024-10-06 4:05PM Las Vegas Raiders @ Denver Broncos
Sun 2024-10-06 4:25PM Green Bay Packers @ Los Angeles Rams
Sun 2024-10-06 4:25PM New York Giants @ Seattle Seahawks
Sun 2024-10-06 8:20PM Dallas Cowboys @ Pittsburgh Steelers
Mon 2024-10-07 8:15PM New Orleans Saints @ Kansas City Chiefs
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Notes -
Are you actually familiar with NFL marketing, or are you just making assumptions? The NFL is unique among major pro sports leagues in that it has realized that there is no better marketing tool than the game itself. Baseball tries to appeal to tradition and present itself as a sort of timeless, historical pastime that acts as a bridge to a better era of American life (which seems preposterous today and is probably why their numbers have been declining for years). The NBA tries to create synergy with anything that might engage youth culture (hip hop, fashion, primordial competition, nostalgia for the 1990s, the word "amazing", etc.). NASCAR appeals to Red State contrarianism. Soccer appeals to people who see themselves as forward-thinking globalists who appreciate fandom more than sports. But the NFL just uses football.
Unlike the other leagues, the NFL never tries to trick anyone into watching something they weren't otherwise inclined to watch. The league's marketing revolves around two things: 1. Making football essential to people who are already inclined to like it, and 2. Making it more essential to people who already find it essential. Occasional shots of Taylor Swift aside, they have no desire of appealing to the casual fan, or luring a 15-year-old in off his skateboard. Unlike Gary Bettman's vision for the NHL, the NFL has no desire to push its product on nonchalant audiences with transitory interest.
One only has to look at the evolution of NFL draft coverage. For decades, this was strictly a business meeting that took place in a hotel conference room. Then, in 1980, a representative from a fledgling cable network called ESPN asked commissioner Pete Rozelle if he could televise the event and Rozelle's response was "Um, I guess you can if you want to. Why would anyone want to watch that?" Soon they started allowing a small live audience. Then they moved the event to the weekend. Then they moved the event to larger venues to accommodate larger audiences. Coverage snowballed; soon you couldn't get away from it. In the 2010s they moved to a three-day prime-time event. Then they started rotating among NFL venues to accommodate ever larger live audiences. Then it moved on to broadcast television. This year, 775,000 people showed up to watch the draft in Detroit. The NFL never sought to turn a boring meeting where not much happened into a major event, it just sort of worked out that way. Other leagues have tried to turn their drafts into similar extravaganzas, but for some reason they just can't trick people into taking them seriously.
If you want further proof of this, look at the one thing the NFL has tried to aggressively market: The Pro Bowl. All-star games used to be big deals. Baseball had 2 a year at one point, and the NHL and NBA games were always something to watch. The Pro Bowl lacked the prestige of these games, and the NFL never could figure it out; why does a game featuring the best players of the most popular sport in America draw so much apathy? For years, the league just sort of shrugged, but then they decided to do something about it. First, they moved it from the weekend after the Super Bowl to the weekend before the Super Bowl. The logic was that the other leagues got better ratings by holding their all-star games in-season. Doing this snuffed out what appeal the Pro Bowl had: Despite being an inferior game, it was the last chance to watch football for months. Then they moved it from Hawaii to the mainland, eliminating the appeal of seeing sportscasters casually dressed in khakis and Hawaiian shirts outdoors in a tropical paradise while my world is covered in a foot of snow. Then they ditched the AFC–NFC matchup and let old-timer coaches pick their own teams, which meant I couldn't even reflexively root for the AFC because they had all the Steelers on them. Around the time they started monkeying with the format was around the same time the players themselves stopped caring. While they never went all-out, until 2010 or so it at least looked like a normal football game. But the physicality got less and less until the lines were playing patty cake with each other and players were giving up as soon as a defender got near them. Then the defenders stopped even trying to tackle. Then the refs started just blowing plays dead when they were obviously over. So the NFL's most recent fix is the Pro Bowl Games, a series of skills competitions and flag football games that NFL Network Radio won't even cover. Ratings are lower than ever.
The biggest clue to the NFL's marketing, though, is its non-football content. I'm specifically talking about NFL Network radio, and how its programming differs from typical sports talk. Most of the latter consists of loudmouths with big egos and no sports knowledge trying to outdo each other with contrarian hot takes so morons will get fired up enough to call in and argue. They'll focus on the absolute stupidest drivel and make that the centerpiece of discussion for a week. The worst was when, a few years back, one local guy suggested that the Steelers should trade for Patrick Peterson, and they might as well give up on the season if they didn't. Never mind that neither the Steelers, nor the Cardinals, nor Mr. Peterson had any interest in making that trade happen; it was all a media fabrication. Contrast that with NFL Network Radio, where all the hosts have impeccable credentials and assume the audience knows about football. The callers ask intelligent questions, and they get intelligent answers. Shows like Movin' the Chains say "We're going to give you in-depth analysis and if you have any questions, we're experts who can answer them." They don't say stupid shit so some guy flipping through the dial while stuck in traffic will get pissed off enough to hate listen.
In essence, NFL Network Radio works exactly like FOX News: It stays on message and invents talking points for its core constituency to absorb. If Jalen Hurts is temporarily benched for Kenny Pickett in week ten, how will he react? Is his contract an albatross? Has Eagles coach Nick Sirianni lost control of his offense? Is Sirianni on the hot seat? Will Pickett be able to redeem himself after his career in Pittsburgh came to an ignominious end? How will this impact your fantasy team? These are the ideas football fans are supposed to talk about during the run-up to week eleven, and NFL Network Radio ensures that those debates will be part of the public discourse. It does not matter that Hurts did not lose his job or if the Eagles are out of playoff contention. By inventing and galvanizing the message, NFL Network Radio (and by extension the NFL) can always deliver the precise product people want. The idea that anyone is being tricked is preposterous.
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