Growing up on the South side of Chicago, you learned two lessons at an early age. If it was Sunday afternoon you didn't walk in front of the (tiny black & white) television screen and you never, ever tried to change the channel if the Bears were playing.........not if you were partial to keeping your arm. Sunday afternoons were a time of pigskin worship and the Superbowl.....the ultimate homage. Those were our idols. Our supermen. Plowing through linemen in December slush with chunks of turf in their face mask; there was no greater glory. Just how much longer this sport remains as it is, I'm beginning to worry.
I don't say this because of the sky high regular season tickets prices with an average of $144 a piece; sufficient to feed a family of four for a week. It's not because it's falling in popularity. In fact according to a Harris poll, in 2012 football became the #1 most popular sport in the U.S. surpassing America's past time, baseball. In fact betting on NFL games is now more popular in the U.S. than college football or baseball; a stat I never thought I'd see given it's short season and limited number of teams.
It is because greed saw an area to exploit; to drive higher and higher at a much faster pace than income levels. Then the credit crisis hit but prices continued to soar and like all bubbles, it will eventually pop. Fast approaching are the days when only the upper crust will be able to afford to take the kiddies to the fame. Who will fill the stands?
Then there's belt tightening to improve the bottom line. Bear fans still haven't gotten over losing their beloved Honey Bears and five other teams have followed suit but there's more to come. It's no small wonder how the weakening of unions over the last 60 years didn't hurt the fall of manufacturing jobs. The same pressure applied to the UAW and other unions to renegotiate or fear franchise collapse (cough cough) will increase in intensity and scope. Give away negotiate revised pay levels will be pushed even harder with fewer benefits for the players. Some experienced pros will begin to retire early; their nest eggs being made. What will be left........I leave to your imagination.
In the mean time the league's pocketbook will continue to bleed as it has seen lawsuits double in recent years and there doesn't seem to be any end to the trend ahead soon. Just last year 2,000 ex-players filed a suit regarding head injuries and Junior Seau's family filed suit once he committed suicide after being diagnosed with CTE, a brain disease linked to blows to the head which can result in depression and dementia.
Let's not forget, the players themselves are changing. It seems not a week goes by we don't see a new name splattered across a tabloid headline like a bad nightmare. This isn't your Fathers NFL and the idols seem few and far between; let's just leave it at that.
Lastly America itself is changing to a Honey-Boo-Boo, "setmeupwitharichguy" and gold-digger-baby-daddy reality show nightmare so what's the future of the NFL? I say just throw a couple of fund managers into the Octagon, turn the lights off and go home. How much worse can it get?
Comments