NFL Driving Fans Away by Michael Luchies. Read the Entire Article Here
More than ever fans are being driven away from the NFL. This trend cannot be attributed to one factor, but many. The economy, bad officiating, new rules, ticket prices, the economy, and other factors all lead to the NFL losing fans. The NFL is still America’s biggest sport, but for how long if things get worse? Here are many of the contributing issues that have NFL fans saying “no thanks.”
Bad Officiating
Has there ever been a year with more blown calls than this year? We are seeing more and more calls that greatly affect the outcome of the game. The catch is that these calls are happening even in an era where instant replay is present. Let’s look at the Hochuli call in the Chargers/Broncos game. Jay Cutler was attempting to throw the ball when the ball slipped out of his hand prior to his arm moving forward.
The ball came out of his hand, landed behind him, and was recovered by the Chargers who had the lead and would have had the game sealed. Because of Ed Hochuli blowing the play dead, the Broncos kept the ball, scored and went on to win the game. The fault of this is not Hochuli who is a great referee and simply blew his whistle early; it is the NFL’s fault for not being able to change a call that was blown dead when needed. It was obvious to everyone at the game and watching the game on television that the play resulted in a fumble.
The NFL should have been able to reverse the call even though the whistle was blown. The allowance of these calls turns fans off of the game and even brings up conversations of conspiracy (which I believe to be false). Instant replay has also yielded changed calls in the wrong direction, such as the call made in the Steelers Chargers game that cost many sports bettor’s money.
The NFL isn’t and shouldn’t be concerned about betting trends, but because most of the action was on the Steelers to cover the spread, and the call changed the result in favor of “the house” many more fans are screaming conspiracy. These two calls are just the beginning of blown officiating calls that have occurred this year and contribute to fans being fed up with the NFL.
“Unruly fan rule”Read the rest here
