Showing posts with label American football in the United States. Show all posts
Showing posts with label American football in the United States. Show all posts

Monday, December 18, 2017

NFL Attendance Continues To Plummet As Empty Seat Epidemic Enters Week 15

Content originally published at iBankCoin.com


As the NFL copes with a ratings slump and ESPN slashes $80 million in salaries after losing 15,000 subscribers a day in October, another major issue facing the league continued to play out in week 15 - terrible attendance. 



Ravens vs. Browns, Start 2nd Qtr


While many blame the kneeing epidemic of unpatriotic players refusing to stand for the National Anthem - which started in the summer 2016 pre-season by former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick, others point to a boring season, cord cutters and broke millennials staying home. 


Either way, it"s ugly. Since most NFL attendance figures are based on "tickets distributed" as opposed to actual turnstile count, and most NFL ticket sales are to season-ticket holders, it"s nearly impossible to tell how many people are simply choosing not to attend games for which they"ve already bought tickets. Except, pictures don"t lie...


MetLife Stadium was a ghost town at the end of the first quarter, and "1/2 full" as the Philadelphia Eagles and NY Giants headed into the 4th quarter: 





The Arizona Cardinals vs. Washington Redskins at FedEx Field was ROUGH:




San Francisco 49ers vs. Tennessee Titans at Levi Stadium: 


30 minutes before kickoff: 



15 minutes after kickoff - NBC Bay Area web producer Sara Bueno tweeted "Most fans I"ve seen at a #49ers game in a very very long time"



The Ravens vs. Browns game was also a hot mess of empty seats: 


Kickoff




 Beginning of the second quarter




The Green Bay Packers vs. Carolina Panthers at Bank of America Stadium was cricket-city:




Now imagine how attendance would be if the country was covered in snow!?



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Friday, December 15, 2017

Fan Sues Saints, Wants Season Ticket Refund Over NFL Players Protest

A season-ticket holder has just filed a lawsuit against the New Orleans Saints demanding the organization refunds his money because some players have disrespected the national anthem before games this season. The fan, Lee Dragna, filed the lawsuit on Monday against the NFL team for $8,000 plus lawyer’s fees. In the lawsuit, he claims, the protest by some players against police brutality and racial injustice has prevented him and his family from enjoying the games.


He bought the tickets for the “entertainment and intellectual enjoyment”, and said he would have never made the purchase had he known NFL players would “use Saints football games as a platform for protests.” Further, the suit alleges Dragna hasn’t attended a game since players protested the first home game, on September 17.


The suit said,




They passed directly in front of where the petitioner and his guests were seated. Many of the fans in that area booed and cursed at the Saints players.


 


Apparently, these players were following the lead of (former San Francisco 49ers quarterback) Colin Kaepernick by disrespecting the flag, the anthem, the USA and those who have served and are serving the USA in our military.   




On Tuesday, Dragna told The New Orleans Advocate,




That the rowdy, angry reaction of the people around his seats has made the tickets unusable by him and his family, as well as customers he would otherwise give the tickets to.


 


He said the behavior of some fans upset by the protests — cursing, spilling beer — is “borderline dangerous,” though he said he thinks the responsibility for that behavior ultimately rests not with the fans but with owner Tom Benson.


 


“The Saints created that behavior by condoning it,” he said.


 


“It’s my thought pattern that (players) should not be allowed (to protest),” he said. “If you sell tickets to a gaming event for entertainment, you should not be allowed to turn it political.”




According to ESPN, the Saints declined to comment, saying they had escalated the situation to the legal department.  However, an anonymous source said the organization is “taking this very seriously, and this fan best have his facts in order.”


“The Saints will come back at this fan who has brought forth incorrect information in his statement with everything to defend the team, organization and players,” the source said.


Two days ago, Saint’s running back Mark Ingram II lashed out at Dragna on social media.. ESPN notes that Ingram was one of 10 Saint players who sat on the bench during the national anthem in week 3, in response to President Trump’s comments about NFL players (see: Trump Goes Nuclear: Trump Sports Feud Escalates: Demands NFL Chief “Tells Them To Stand”).



According to Gabe Feldman, director of Tulane University’s Sports Law Program,


“Fans do not have legal standing or a cause of action simply because they are unhappy with how a team performs or acts on the field. If fans were allowed to sue for breach of contract every time they were disappointed with the performance or conduct of a player, there would be an unending string of lawsuits across the country.”


He further explained:  “An NFL ticket allows you to enter a stadium to watch a football game, but it does not guarantee that the players will act in ways that do not upset you — either athletically or politically.”


And as the story of Dragna’s lawsuit circulates across millions of American households, many of whom have stepped away from NFL stadiums and television sets on Sundays (see: NFL Ratings Slump Worsens As ESPN Forced To Slash $80 Million In Salary Costs.), one wonders: did Dragna start the (inevitable) blowback of angry NFL fans asking teams and Goodell for their money back?









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Sunday, September 24, 2017

Former Democratic Congresswoman Urges All NFL Players To Kneel During National Anthem

Having left public office in January, former U.S. Congresswoman from Maryland, Donna Edwards, has decided to get involved in the current meme of the moment battle over respect and freedom of "speech" between President Trump and The NFL...



We have to admit we are a little confused.


We thought that if you disrespected anything American, you were automatically a "Russian puppet", but now it"s "cool" to bash America"s flag, its anthem, and The White House?



For some reason, Edwards decided to tweet this shortly after...



So do as I say, not as I do?


This seemed to sum up what we suspect will occur should this former congresswoman get her wishes...


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Saturday, September 23, 2017

NFL Chief Lashes Out At "Divisive, Disrespectful" Trump Over "Son Of A Bitch" Comment

Update: Trump"s comments have elicited some responses from NFL players also...


DeMaurice Smith, head of the NFL Players Association



Lesean McCoy of the Buffalo Bills



Eric Ebron of the Detroit Lions



Chris Conley of the Kansas City Chiefs



George Iloka of the Cincinnati Bengals



Richard Sherman of the Seattle Seahawks




*  *  *


As we detailed earlier, after warming up the Alabama crowd Friday night with a recitation of Trump’s Greatest hits (attacks on Hillary Clinton, intransigent Republicans in Congress and, of course, the president’s love of Roll Tide football), Trump abruptly went off on a tangent about the NFL and the growing number of players who are following former San Francisco 49ers back-up QB Colin Kaepernick in kneeling during the National Anthem, purportedly to protest racial injustice in the US.



In remarks that predictably provoked a chorus of outrage in the left wing media Saturday, Trump said that NFL owners should fire players like Kaepernick - whom the president implied was a "son of a b***h" for “disrespecting our heritage” by refusing to stand for the anthem – who engage in gametime protests, adding that any owner who did so would become “the most popular person in the country – at least for a week.” He then asked his supporters to leave the stadium if they see players protesting during games, adding that walkouts would force NFL franchise owners to confront the protests.





"When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when they are playing our great national anthem – the only thing you could do better is if you see it, even if it"s one player, leave the stadium," Trump said. "I guarantee things will stop."



"I"d love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, "Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He"s fired."




Of course, even the suggestion that the league engage in the active suppression of speech (as if it isn’t doing that already) was enough to provoke an outraged response from Commissioner Roger Goodell.



In a statement issued Saturday morning, Goodell said Trump’s “divisive” comments “demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL.”





“The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture.  There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we"ve experienced over the last month. 



Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.”



Unfortunately for Goodell, Trump has a point about the popularity (or rather, unpopularity) of political protests at sporting events, and their impact on the NFL’s ratings.


As Free Market Shooter pointed out in a Saturday post, ratings truly are down across the NFL, and surveys have suggested that the drop is tied to controversial protests, which have alienated many of the white, working-class fans that comprise the league’s fan base.


Though Colin Kaepernick is still unsigned by any NFL team, other players are continuing the “protest” trend that he started. However, since Kaepernick first refused to stand for the anthem last year, attendance at the team’s games, and its ratings, have declined.



A recent J.D. Power survey shows that the national anthem protests are directly to blame for declining ratings.


The group surveyed 9,200 fans (a sample of 1,000 is usually used in political polling), and 26% of them said they had turned the games off due to the national protests alone.


As Free Market Shooter concludes, at the end of the day, the NFL is facing a number of headwinds that have led to a decline in ratings.  High prices of the game itself, both for the home consumer and the fans in stadium seats, are certainly what gets the ball rolling on fans choosing to tuning out.  Combine that with questions on the quality of the game, accessibility, and a litany of other factors not mentioned here (including the commissioner’s punishments of players and concussion fears), and it seems the political antics of some players is just one of many aspects that has led to the NFL’s sharp ratings drop.


However, when a Trump-voting US military veteran is sitting at home, pissed off about how his team is 0-2, angry that his cable bill is eating into his disability payments, upset that the game “isn’t what it used to be,” and he turns on the game just before kickoff to see a player doing this while the National Anthem is being sung…



...it just might be the straw that breaks this guy’s back and gets him to tune out of this week’s game.  Given the NFL’s current predicament regarding viewership, political antics from players are the last thing the league needs right now. 


*  *  *


For anyone who has been following the Kaepernick saga, the hypocrisy in Goodell’s statement should be strikingly obvious. NFL owners have, in effect, already acquiesced to Trump’s demands that they fire protesting players: case in point, Kaepernick has been blackballed from the league after opting out of his contract with the 49ers back in March.


But then again, hypocrisy is nothing new to the NFL.
 

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Saturday, July 29, 2017

Confirmed: NFL Fans Tuned Out Last Year Because Players Protested The National Anthem

Authored by Kati Pavlich via Townhall.com,


The NFL took a massive ratings dive last year after a number of players, led by former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, refused to stand for the National Anthem. At the time, NFL officials claimed they didn"t exactly know why ratings were down and even used the 2016 presidential election as an excuse for why more people weren"t watching. 



But according to a new survey from J.D. Power, NFL fans did in fact tune out in droves because of the disrespect and protest of the National Anthem before games. From ESPN: 





National anthem protests were the top reason that NFL fans watched fewer games last season, according to a new survey released by J.D. Power.



The pollster said it asked more than 9,200 people who attended either one football, basketball or hockey game whether they tuned into fewer games and why. Twenty-six percent of those who watched fewer games last season said that national anthem protests, some of which were led by Colin Kaepernick, were the reason.



After that, 24 percent of those surveyed who said they watched fewer games said they did so either because of the league"s off-the-field image issues with domestic violence or with game delays, including penalties.



After being dropped from the 49ers last year, sports pundits and fellow players have accused anyone and everyone of racism for Kaepernick"s failure to resign with another team. Turns out he"s not only a bad quarterback, but a business liability. 


Patriotism is still winning in America and that"s a good thing. Here"s to hoping this season comes with more respect on the field from players who are privileged to live in the greatest country on earth.

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