San Francisco 49ers

The NFL Is Going Stale, So It Must Embrace The Internet

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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You can put the blame on Colin Kaepernick’s protesting or the election cycle, but the NFL’s rating slide is a reflection of a product that just isn’t as strong as it used to be.

Products get stale. Eventually, you get tired of seeing the same thing over and over again, especially if the corporation providing the product doesn’t seem invested in giving you the best experience possible.

By not providing guaranteed contracts, quibbling with rookies over contractual language, not taking care of retired players, and causing its most important employees (the players) to distrust it, the NFL has already shown that it views players as something only slightly above fodder for entertainment. Fans play a role in this, too, because every comment against a player holding out is, in essence, enabling this behavior from the league.

From what we have seen this season, I can’t understand why fans don’t show loyalty to the players over individual teams, because the leaders of these teams (the owners), don’t value the fans as much as they say they do.

Whenever we criticize the NFL as a brand, we have to remember that Roger Goodell isn’t actually the man in charge. Yes, anyone in an executive position will have leeway to adjudicate as they please, but Goodell is more of a figurehead than dictator. The owners are the ones that cut his pay and put him into power. So they should share some of the blame for the NFL’s declining product.

Just take a look at two of the last three primetime games. The Arizona Cardinals and San Francisco 49ers put together a dud of a football game on Thursday Night Football. That flop was “topped” by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers vs. Carolina Panthers snoozefest on Monday Night Football.

I can see why a Bucs vs. Panthers game would have been appealing before the season, but why pit Arizona and San Francisco against each other in a marquee timeslot? They may be division rivals, but did the NFL actually think that a game between a Super Bowl contender and a No. 1 overall pick contender would be a compelling contest?

After the first four weeks of the regular season, the NFL’s ratings were down 11 percent (CNN), and that aforementioned TNF game had a 17 percent dropoff in viewership compared to 2015’s TNF game.

Instead of seeking to improve their brand, the NFL has weakened it by making a counterproductive decision. Over the weekend, the NFL sent a memo to teams that posting unauthorized video on social media during games will result in a $25,000 fine for the first infraction (Mashable).

This hurts the NFL’s product in a big way, because preventing highlights from being disseminated on the web will hurt its ability to attract new fans.

.@NFL banning gifs/highlights is like a movie studio thinking if they ban movie trailers it'll make more people go to the theater.

— BOOlake Allen Murphy (@blakemurphy7) October 9, 2016

This tweet perfectly encapsulates the illogical nature of this decision. Highlights are the best way to get fans more attracted to watching actual games. Seeing more GIFs of Drew Stanton “dancing,” Odell Beckham Jr. making crazy catches, Antonio Brown sneakily using a defensive back’s blind spots, and Von Miller blowing by offensive tackles would surely cause more people to tune into NFL games on CBS, FOX, NBC, and ESPN.

Whenever the NFL makes a decision related to the usage of highlights, a comparison to the far more accepting NBA is brought up. Though the NFL remains the king of sports (and it isn’t even close), the NBA saw more growth last season. Per ESPN, ABC saw a nine percent increase in viewership last season, while ESPN saw a 10 percent increase. According to the Wall Street Journal, TNT’s viewership went up by 1 percent, and NBA TV’s increased by 19 percent.

Sports Illustrated found that FOX’s NFL viewership in 2015 increased by a small percentage, CBS increased by two percent, Sunday Night Football increased by six percent, and Monday Night Football declined in viewership. Because, we have seen this season, the Monday night games stink. I mean, you’re far better off watching WWE Monday Night Raw at this point.

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So you can see that the NFL started to approach its ceiling last season, even though the Sunday Night Football games remained strong. This past week’s contest between the Green Bay Packers and New York Giants was far from an instant classic, it had a lot more intrigue than the other primetime games in Week 5.

Solely from a scheduling standpoint, I wonder if the NFL would be better off forcing fewer divisional rivalry games into primetime spots. Division games add some stakes and unpredictability, but how many of us truly want to see the Panthers vs. Bucs or the Cardinals vs. 49ers?

Another solution could be to flex more games, but this could put too much stress on players or teams that have to play earlier than they like. If done carefully, this shouldn’t be a huge problem, but can we trust the NFL to keep things balanced and give teams enough notice if they start flexing games more often?

I look at all of these issues dealing with the NFL’s inability to get more people to tune in this year, and I wonder if it is time for them to take this as a sign that they need to keep strengthening the other parts of their brand. They deserve to be panned for preventing teams from spreading more GIFs, but at least they do post periodic highlights during the games. They aren’t the most up-to-date highlights, but they do a solid job. Furthermore, their YouTube channel is much better this season, because they show highlights of individual players in addition to showing highlights for each of the games.

This isn’t enough, though, because YouTube is only one small part of the equation. Beyond the fact that you cannot embed their videos to a website, the highlights of individual plays are mostly limited to touchdowns.

Then there’s the issue of convenience. Are you really going to go to YouTube and watch an NFL video highlight or would you prefer to see them periodically appearing on social channels?

This leads to the issue of coverage. Let’s say you are a fan of a team that the NFL doesn’t talk about much, such as the Tennessee Titans. What if you are interested in seeing some highlight clips of Tajae Sharpe? He is one of your team’s most important players, but he isn’t someone the NFL will be posting highlight clips of. If the Titans cannot share GIFs of him on social media channels, can you expect the NFL to do the same? They only have a limited amount of time to post highlights, so the NFL’s official channels will only focus on the biggest names, such as Marcus Mariota and DeMarco Murray.

What the NFL is doing is weakening individual brands, because this policy hurts the outreach teams and players can have. The NFL needs to remember that it is only as strong as the sum of its parts, and most fans only care about their team and a few of the big stars (like Tom Brady and Julio Jones). The NFL covers these stars liberally on its channels, but there will be gaps in the way highlights of players like Devin McCourty and Desmond Trufant are produced. A fan of the Dallas Cowboys couldn’t care less about Trufant, but Falcons fans would love to share a cool GIF of him celebrating or showing great coverage skills against a rival wide receiver like Mike Evans.

Oct 9, 2016; Cleveland, OH, USA; New England Patriots fans wait for the arrival of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady before the game between the Cleveland Browns and the New England Patriots at FirstEnergy Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Ken Blaze-USA TODAY Sports

When WWE superstar Ryback left the company, he publicly explained why he left. One of his main complaints dealt with the WWE’s inability to recognize the importance of strengthening individual brands. He spoke about how the shop did not carry some of his items and did not make enough an effort to help him have the broadest reach possible. Ryback did not expect to have the same opportunities to build a brand as a bigger-name superstar, but he was frustrated that the WWE somewhat ignored its other superstars.

Part of me fears the NFL could make this mistake if it does not allow its teams to have the best social media outreach possible. Teams like the Denver Broncos and players like Russell Wilson will be well-represented by @NFL, but what happens to the Jacksonville Jaguars and Telvin Smith? Is the NFL okay with them being lost in the shuffle? I mean, if I lived in the Jacksonville area and kept seeing killer hits from Smith, I might be more interested in tuning in on Sundays to watch this guy.

The NFL needs to remember that a large amount of its popularity stems from a scheduling fluke. Fantasy football is king. There’s a reason why the most-followed writers on Twitter are fantasy writers. And there’s a reason why skill-position players get searched on Google more often than defensive players.

Why is fantasy football so much popular than fantasy basketball or baseball? You don’t have to set your lineup every day, because that’s far too time-consuming for the average person. And with advent of daily fantasy leagues, the time investment becomes even smaller. You just pick a new team every week and you don’t have to worry about trades or perusing the waiver wire.

If the NFL doesn’t take social media seriously, especially given the obvious changes in social climate, then they are seriously missing out on a way to advertise their product on-the-field. Additionally, so much of the interest in the game today has been about dissecting player performance and the NFL is missing out on a chance to harness that by restricting the freedom their 32 teams have on social media. Judging by how many people there are on Twitter analyzing “tape” from college and NFL players, you’d think that there would be a market for this type of content on social media from team publishers.

At the very least, having more in-game highlights available would be key for fans. Not able to watch a game on TV or elsewhere? At work? Just check your phone and see the important plays that your favorite team has made. The NFL has deals that monetize highlights and is there really reason to think that interest in more NFL highlights from online brands would wane? After all, ad revenue from these clips is split between both parties.

The NFL needs to do a better job of scheduling games so that the events themselves are more entertaining, but a great way to increase the value of the product is to become better at showing off the brand to the world. Failing to distribute more highlights as “trailers,” moneymaking products on a smaller scale, or simply as topics of conversation represents a missed opportunity.

Highlights don’t have to be limited to great catches or passes either (and yes, there are more great plays than just touchdowns). But they can also be more “intellectual” highlights, such as a great block or a savvy route. There may be less interest in these types of plays, but I see a market for it on my own Twitter timeline. It also couldn’t hurt to try, and that’s the biggest problem I have with the NFL right now. They’ve gone stale, because, unlike the NBA, they just don’t want to innovate when it comes to their online outreach.

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