Goodell to the last drop?

It seems the media has gotten its panties in a twist over the NFL's drop in viewership.  Bokolis doesn't have the numbers to share with you so we can jerk ourselves off to period-over-period comparisons.  Those numbers are probably all bullshit anyway.  As they say in the corporate world, garbage in, garbage out.  Slightly more seriously, it's not like we can definitively assign a portion of any decline to each cause.

With regard to the numbers, the finger pointing is towards Sunday and Monday night, where there is a significant reduction in the numbers, most of all on Monday night, which is generally attributed to cord-cutting (and NOT Gruden).  Allegedly, the traditional time slots are holding steady.  This relative strength may be distracting the NFL from reflecting, isn't Sunday-day supposed to be growing?

The discussion as to why is mainly about Kaepernick and the election.  That's what surveys are yielding, but there may be some bias at work, where people are responding with both what they think the asker wants to hear and what they think the issue is.  They've lost a few people objecting to how much smack my bitch up is going on.  Whatevs, it's never only one reason; at best, these are tipping points, not causes.

Bokolis would add that our Sundays are no longer sacrosanct.  Once upon a time, the typical family structure was such that a man could bunker up on Sunday and his old lady- and everyone else- knew to leave him the fuck alone.  That is no longer the case; there's always shit going on.  If you think I'm bullshitting, think about how many times your friends, in advance of sending an actual invitation, send you a save the date! message...even they know they're competing for your Sunday.

It doesn't help that there is too much of the product.  Even in the intact nuclear family, it's tough to ask for Thursday night, 10-12 hours of Sunday, then Monday night, especially when your budding narcissists are clamoring for attention and for you to take them here and there.

Even for those free of such obligations, by Sunday/Monday night, anyone who isn't invested in the outcome is done with it.  We've seen this in the football where they actually kick the ball; not content with virtually every week having mid-week fixtures, they are now in the process of regularly impinging on our Mondays and Fridays.

The profiles are of the viewers are different- football fans are closer to fanatics; NFL fans have more who watch because they think that's what they're supposed to be doing.  By nightfall, there is other programming that they think they are supposed to be watching.  If they don't believe Bokolis, then they should do some kind of digging to find how many unique viewers come aboard for Sunday night and how many drop off.  While they're at it, they might want to look into how many of its Sunday-day viewers had already been watching the European matches, as this may be contributing to the weariness.

Bokolis is astounded that none of the discussion involves the product.  The root cause is the product.  The NFL would be foolish to think otherwise, and to think that much of this issue isn't its own doing.  So, I'm'a tell you what the fuck is gomes on.  The following is longhand for, Goodell is a cunt.

• There has been too much change from what we used to know as football...the game is now rugby for fairies.  This is how you lose the older audience, as they lose connection with the game they knew in their youth.  The NFL and NBA might be changing with the times but, while they corrupt their product they are trading demographics.  Contrast it with MLB, whose statistics are sacred and which is essentially the same game it has been since the live-ball era/spitter was outlawed, plus or minus the tightness of the stitching of the balls.  Its fans are aging, and the younger crowd finds the game boring.
• Proving that it's lose-lose, you can't please everyone, and some other platitudes, people are avoiding the NFL because, even in its pussy-whipped state, they still see the game as barbaric.
• There is too much shit besides the game being pushed on us by the NFL, like its cause of the week, those god-awful bright jerseys and American flags the size of the field.  I'll bet y'all didn't know that the reason they came up with flag laws in the first place was to prevent the flag from being used for commercial purposes.
• There is too much talk from the ex-jock- or worse, Gruden- analyst/color commentator.  Leaving aside that what I think about the analytical abilities of a guy who largely had to do exactly as he was told for his whole career, let the game breathe.  If I have to suffer through an analyst, at least get someone on there who was largely thinking for himself on the field, who had a rationale for doing things that wasn't drilled into him by the coach...and don't give me that coach, either.
• There are too many commercials, the content of which indicates what they think of our intelligence.
• There are too many rules, with too many nuances, including some that defy logic and one or two that defy sensibility.  It used to be a socialist league, but has devolved into Soviet communism.
• There is too much replay without suitable resolution.  They've gotten a little better this season, but it's just too much.  There has to be a point where the resolution is, too fucking bad- run the clock.
• There is far too much involvement by people other than the players.  The coaches talk to the QB and one defensive player via speaker in helmets.  Most plays are called from sideline, or from offensive coordinators who operate from above.  In fact, the offense goes no-huddle to force defense to line up so the offense can call a play accordingly.  The head coach can call timeout himself, and throw the challenge flag, after the geeks have had a look at the replay.
• Conversely, there are far too many instances of boneheaded plays and acts, as there is ample opportunity for ill-prepared, ill-focused players across all caliber of teams to do whatever the Light shines upon them to do.  These coaches are so involved in the game yet, having all week to teach these guys their jobs, they fail to do so.
• The thing that insults my intelligence the most is that the structure is such that the last 2-3 minutes matter more than the rest.  57 minutes of superiority can be undone by tactics, strategy and effective use of time outs.  If that's the case, I'll skip the 57 and show up for bonus coverage, or just watch the red zone channel.

Because an immediate effect was not seen, Bokolis didn't even consider the distaste from the last CBA negotiation, where the owners locked out the players and effectively stuck them up in starving them until they accepted a markedly worse deal than the existing, even with projected brisk revenue growth.  That's another story.

Individually, none of these dissatisfiers are going to make anyone altogether drop the game.  They do, however, chip away at commitment, enough to let other things sometimes take precedence and, eventually, hold.

That's all the fuck I got.