The NFL is great fun, unless you’re watching live on television. Commercials are ruining football, despite the fun that is fantasy and gambling and the like. What’s an NFL fan to do? Dan Salem and Todd Salem debate in today’s NFL Sports Debate. Two brothers from New York yell, scream, and debate sports.
TODD:
As we sit on the precipice of the Super Bowl, there is something I must come to grips with.
I don’t enjoy watching NFL football.
Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy following football. I enjoy rooting for my team and playing fantasy and entering wins pools and all that. It’s all a good time, but the actual action of watching games no longer seems fun to me.
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This is partially due to the moral hellscape that the NFL has become. It’s hard to support a sport that does so many diabolical things on a day-to-day basis off the field while also crippling men and shortening their lives on the field.
This is also due to the eye-mutilating event that an NFL game on television is. Kickoff; commercial; three-and-out; commercial; touchdown, extra point; commercial, kick-off; another commercial.
It’s also due to overindulgence of that “other stuff.” With fantasy teams, daily fantasy teams, survivor pools, wins pools and picks against the spread to follow, who has time to actually care about game play? This sport lends itself perfectly to these peripheral games unlike any of our other professional sports, but doesn’t that take something away from the product?
I occasionally hear from people who do not partake in fantasy football or wagering. They exclaim, from the outside mind you, how those things take away from the enjoyment of football. Perhaps they are correct. But if I quit all that stuff, told myself not to worry about the moral concerns and just watched for my team, then it simply comes down to the sport being a tiresome television experience, not to mention the lagging excitement if my team happens to be out of contention by Week 12.
I don’t know what the answer is. I also don’t know that I will be changing anything about how I consume this league. Don’t mind me; I’m just chilling in this section marked Hypocrites.
DAN:
Mr. Hypocrite, let me introduce you to something called ‘NFL Sunday Ticket.’ I would also like to point at something called a ‘Sport Bar’ sitting in the corner, winking at you. You are not wrong, but you are also missing out on what allows the NFL to remain fun to watch.
I watch my team every week off my DVR. I don’t start watching until half time and fast forward through all of the commercials, extra points, punts and kickoffs. This is the ONLY way to truly watch an NFL football game. It lasts about 90 minutes to 2 hours and is a thoroughly enjoyable experience. One must sacrifice up to the minute fantasy scoring, but the trade-off is worth it.
‘NFL Sunday Ticket’ allows you to watch every game. When a commercial hits, you can flip to another matchup. This is wonderful fun, switching between your active fantasy guys and the best showdowns of the week. You can also head to a ‘Sports Bar’ where the commercials and kicking plays actually aid in your experience. They give you time to drink, hit on a lady, or talk with your friends. It’s the reason the NFL got so popular and why many people don’t have the complaints you’ve voiced.
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All that being said, I’m fully on your side. Reality check, the sport of football is ugly and the NFL enterprise is a shrewd business entity hell-bent on world domination. No matter how much they ‘clean it up’ publicly, it will always be a violent sport full of individuals who enjoy the violence, run by men dominating the professional sports market worldwide. Like all good businesses, questionable practices are employed to win at all costs. This is not a place for morality.
What do we do as NFL football fans? How can we celebrate a sport we love when it’s so obviously bad for its players, and increasingly unwatchable in its current commercial-ridden form? We must adapt and grow as sports fans. We must change our pre-conceived notions of what football has always been. Like baseball fans were forced to do in the late 90’s through the steroid era, football fans must forget the past they loved and accept the current game for what it is.
All of the exterior games, fantasy and gambling and the like, will help this sport survive. But if too many people decide the violence now bothers them, the NFL will shrivel up like professional boxing. It will become second tier like MMA. Something else will replace it, however. Because we as humans love to watch violence. It’s an excellent alternative to actual warfare, as long as the men involved are okay with the risks.
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Commercials make an NFL game tiresome and very long. Outside of the Super Bowl, where the commercials are actually fun, an average NFL game will always suffer from this issue. Unless sponsors pay the league for a given game broadcast, cutting down on the number of commercials significantly, we as fans must adapt. This is common practice for the premiers of new TV shows, and I’m an advocate here as well.
Move over and make room for me. I’m joining you in the Hypocrites section, hoping to enlighten its members to alternative viewing options.