Is it marketing or just the football?
How many of you tuned in to watch the Chicago Bears vs. Arizona
Cardinals game on Monday night? Answer: Probably a lot.
Now how many of you watched the game because you were fans of
those teams? Answer: Not many, which shows the marketing genius of
the NFL.
Is it marketing or just the football?
How many of you tuned in to watch the Chicago Bears vs. Arizona Cardinals game on Monday night? Answer: Probably a lot.
Now how many of you watched the game because you were fans of those teams? Answer: Not many, which shows the marketing genius of the NFL.
I got to thinking about it last Sunday. No other sport is able to whip up such a national fan frenzy each week to watch teams that don’t even compete in their home market.
Sure, we’d all watch the A’s, Giants, Sharks, Warriors, 49ers and Raiders. That’s understandable.
And we’d probably watch teams that we don’t normally follow come playoff time. But the NFL is able to keep us glued to the television set to watch teams that we don’t normally follow.
Think about it. Would you ever take a whole day to watch a regular-season game between the Montreal Canadiens and the Atlanta Thrashers? You’re probably thinking who the heck are the Thrashers anyway. How about an NBA game between the Charlotte Bobcats and the Memphis Grizzlies?
We could care less about those games, but the NFL is so effective at getting us to watch any game anywhere.
Maybe it’s because the games are only on on Sundays and Mondays, which prevents boredom and overkill. That could be part of it since the other teams play so often that people might get bored with them.
Miss an Oakland A’s game and there’s still 161 to go – even for non-playoff teams, right? Miss an NFL game and you’re down to just 15.
The NFL and the networks that broadcast the games have done such a good job with all of the hoopla that people seem equally enthused with all of the off-field drama and pre-game hype as they are with the games themselves.
Today’s NFL fan has become like the stay-at-home mom who can’t miss an episode of General Hospital. In addition to the games, we tune in for injury reports, fantasy football stats, dumb skits, what’s up with T.O. in Big D, Manning vs. Manning, etc, etc. It just doesn’t stop.
How many times have you watched the game before the 49ers or Raiders game on a Sunday that had no ramifications whatsoever on the team(s) you follow? But that is the marketing genius of the NFL.
If it’s not the A’s, Giants or the team that you grew up following, baseball manages to only get us pumped up for the ALCS, NLCS and the World Series. The same goes for the other major sports. How many of you have watched a random club soccer game? But you will tune in for World Cup. It takes major games to make us watch the other sports. Many of you will watch The Masters, but how many of you will watch the John Deere Classic?
Yet football, on the other hand, is the only sport that has us watching the preseason games with excitement – games that the starters often don’t play in for more than a series of downs. Are we insane?
How and why are we so interested in America’s new pastime?
I think I’ve got the answer. It all hit me after watching a few fumbles last week. Could it be because of the football itself?
By design, the odd shape of the football alone is what creates the excitement. Golf balls, hockey pucks, baseballs and basketballs don’t ever do this. They are all just essential for play.
But the football, with its 13 pounds of PSI pumped into the oval-shaped pigskin, goes beyond this.
In addition to its necessity for play, a fumbled ball can go left; right, forward or backward – even right back into the hands of the player who lost it. Blocked punts and bad snaps can do the same.
Even good punts can land and shoot backwards; just as bad punts can land and advance forward.
The shape of the ball also makes drilling home a long field goal an art form.
Then there’s the onside kick – the most exciting play in the game today. Yet, if the football was round, it wouldn’t even be a little bit exciting.
But everyone who’s watching knows that when that ball goes off the turf, hits someone’s helmet or lands on the ground, where it stops nobody knows.
How many times have we all seen shoot out of fumble skirmish pile like a bottle rocket in any random direction?
Its aerodynamic shape also paves way for the long bomb and other exciting plays that couldn’t be pulled off with a normal ball.
So next week, when you’re sitting in front of the TV with a Raiders hat and shirt on, a bag of chips and some adult beverages from the pre-game show all the way through the final snap of the Madden/Michaels game, remember, what got you watching in the first place could be the one thing that no one ever talks about, the football itself.
