Recently listening to ESPN Sports Radio, I heard that overall interest in every sport except MMA and the NFL is declining. As soon as I heard that I was kinda shocked and didn't think that it was true, but after thinking about it for a while it made sense and I agree with that statement. Now take MMA out of the picture because it is a younger small sport that basically has no where to go but up. So why has the NFL continued to grow, but the NBA, MLB, and NHL are all slowly losing interest in fans. I'm also going to throw the NHL out of this argument for the fact that the lockout basically killed the league and its going to take smart marketing to even get the league relevant again.
The answer is simple, sports fans have been over saturated with games from these three leagues, while the NFL comparatively is just barely around. The NFL plays 16 regular season games, and only plays on basically 2 nights a week for the majority of the season, Sunday, and Monday. The NFL is around so little that you have to watch otherwise you miss a majority of the action or season. You only have to take one day to watch football, and you have the rest of the week to prepare for the upcoming games, talk about the previous games and get your chips and dip ready for the next game.
When I was growing up the NBA was big; it was almost at the level of the NFL, not the top dog in the US sports world, but a number two that was comparable. Since then the NBA may have made more money, but it has killed off its fans slowly but surely; and its not because of this whole these guys are gangster-thugs and will punch people out. Its the fact that the NBA used to be offered maybe once or twice a week, you'd have the League-wide Sunday game on NBC and then local stations would carry your teams games. Now we got NBA League-wide on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday; the NBA has given us so much basketball, that we simply don't care anymore. Instead of saying oh yeah I'm going to watch that game today, we say wait Miami is playing again on TV that's like the 2nd time this week, and about their 4th time this month. We used to look forward to seeing match-ups that featured stars coming around once a week. Now we just have to much basketball and it has made us push it away, the NBA is like your grandma's cooking, sure its great for the first helping, and maybe you'll like a little bit more, but your forced to eat more because you don't want her to feel bad.
Ever since the Lockout MLB has been the 3rd sport in the US. Sure its America's past time and all that stuff, but the fact is today its not really relevant. MLB has the same problem that the NBA has, it used to be on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. Some of those nights had double headers so you could watch great teams go at it all night long now, but now its on Monday, Tuesday as well as Wednesday, Saturday and Sunday. You'd think oh those two extra nights means they will show different teams right; you wish, the same teams are consistently on, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox. Big teams are good for leagues and are always around to play the villain to everyones hero, but when you see them as much as they are on TV, you just don't care about that team anymore. Another thing that has killed interest in the MLB in recent years is the Yankees-Red Sox rivalry. Rivalries are great for sports, College football basically built it self up from the rivalries it had, but hearing about two teams everyday for the past 3 years has turned me away. I DON'T CARE IF THE YANKEES ARE 15 GAMES BACK IN MAY, its May, who cares talk to me about some other teams that are doing well like the Brewers. I've lost interest in this current MLB season because all I heard about for the first two months of the season was; the Yankees are falling apart, Joe Torre is going to get fired, or maybe The Red Sox are the best team in baseball, Is Boston in panic mode they lost 3 straight? Maybe I'll come around and pay attention during the playoffs or close to the trade deadline to see whose trying to make a move to get to the World Series. So while the MLB is on the TV, my TV will be off because just like the majority of Americans, I just don't care anymore.
P.S. Side note GOOOOOOOOO BEAVERSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Most of this can be blamed on ESPN (Eastern Sports Programming Network). Well at least for baseball this is what it means. It has meant this since the mid 90's.
I can't remember when Baseball tonight didn't cover more about the Red Sox and Yankees. It gets rather boring for a sports fan when all you see is something about the Red Sox and Yankees.
Sure you get to see 1 min if you are lucky about another team. Basically this is an ESPN problem. Other networks are much better at this. FOX baseball on saturday is actually good and when the Brewers aren't on I usually watch the game they are showing for the day. Which is usually a team you wouldn't see on ESPN.
I know the Yankees and Red Sox sell but you can't have them on Wednesday night baseball or Sunday night the majority of the time.
Right now I'm getting really bored of the NFL. It feels as though ESPN is cramming it down my throat right now. Its June right now I don't want to hear about the NFL until about August.
Why do I need to know about Pacman Jones 24 hours a day? Why do I need to know about the Bengals and all their problems everyday? I heard this one month ago so why are you telling me this again?
The truth is that baseball is actually having some real good feel good stories for small market teams this year. The Brewers and Indians are playing great baseball. ESPN's thoughts on baseball is that if it doesn't involve the six big teams in baseball then ESPN really doesn't care about. The six teams are the Cubs, Yankees, Mets, Red Sox, Dodgers, and Braves. If it doesn't involve any of those teams then they don't really care.
Just look at the teams that play on ESPN. Majority of the games are either Yankees, Red Sox, Cubs, Mets, or Dodgers. The Braves not so much because they are on TBS all the time. ESPN really needs to get rid of the saturday and monday games and just have the Wednesday night and Sunday night games. Spread the games out so you get all of the MLB teams on there. That way you get a variety of teams.
Now for the NBA. On TNT it is somewhat balanced but the NBA has become rather boring. I like the Spurs and the way they play but the Finals was horrible. Theres definitely two leagues in the NBA the good league and the absolute horrible league.
The Eastern conference has absolutely no chance when you stack up the teams and compare them to the Western conference. The bottom teams in the West could be top teams in the East thats how bad it is in the NBA and with the draft going to two teams from the West is not a good thing for the league.
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