When you're growing up as a sports fan, you can't wait to go to games. One of my goals in my youth was to become a Detroit Tigers season ticket holder.
I no longer watch baseball, nor do I attend sporting events of any size with any sort of regularity. The actual experience of attending a sporting event has lost it's appeal, for a number of reasons.
This is a complex issue, so let's walk down a couple of side roads to unpack the issue.
Externalizing the Risks
MLB, the NFL, and the CFL (with the next TSN contract) have largely externalized the risk of not attracting a significant audience. They've done this by finding broadcast partners who are willing to spend enough money for the rights to broadcast their games that the individual franchises, as well as the league, generate enough operating revenue to cover expenses on an annual basis before a game is even played. You'd have to be an idiot owner, live in an exceptionally weak sports market or have a substantial debt service on either your stadium or your team in order not to make a profit on the franchise. Which explains why the only two NFL franchises that are consistent money losers are the Detroit Lions and the Miami Dolphins.
The risk, then of an audience that is too small to generate the same amount of revenue transfers from the member clubs, who would have to attract enough gate revenue to turn a profit, to television networks, who have to sell enough advertising and carrier fees from cable and satellite operators to cover rights fees and production costs.
This gets us to the starting point that, because these leagues have externalized their risks, they can therefore focus, to whatever extent they do or don't choose, on the gravy which, specifically, is getting your butt in the seat. But understand that, for these leagues, getting your butt in the seat is no longer the priority, and will always take a backseat to ensuring the television product continues to generate money for them.
The Statistics
It's worth noting that attendance at MLB and NFL events has declined slowly but consistently since at least 2007. There are a multitude of reasons for this, as clubs, seeing their gravy money start to dissipate, try desperately to hold on to their audience. The NFL, in particular has tried a number of technological innovations, including the lending of televisions to people attending games and the boosting of cell service, to hold fans attention in-stadium. The Jaguars have gone so far as to broadcast NFL Red Zone during games in order to keep their fans entertained.
Personally
For a multitude of reasons, I have little interest in attending NFL games. I live in an NFL market where I have no interest in the home team. I do make enough money where purchasing tickets doesn't constitute an economic hardship. It helps that I have no children, so I'm excluded from the "family of four" argument, personally, though it is absolutely a factor.
With that out of the way, let me list some of the reasons why the NFL game experience is an active disincentive for me to attend a game.
Parking The logistics of getting 70 thousand people in and out of one place in anything resembling a timely manner are nearly impossible. If you're driving to a game, pretty much your only choice in Dallas, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Buffalo or Detroit, not only is parking a significant challenge, but getting out after a game in anything resembling a timely manner is a challenge as well. Your 3.5 hour game is really a close to seven hour ordeal by the time transportation logistics are factored in in some markets.
Now, teams have taken steps to mitigate this. Buffalo and Tennessee, to cite two examples, have off site shuttle buses (which I highly recommend). Cleveland and Houston have light rail infrastructure to their stadiums. (Though Cleveland's Blue Line is not well run on game days overall).
That said, the logistics of getting to and from a game, as opposed to watching the game on television with the zero minute commute, are a disincentive.
Technological Limitations Ever try to use a smartphone at a sporting event? I wish you luck. Whether it's Sprint or Verizon, MLB or NFL, cell service is essentially impossible during the game. This makes it difficult to track other things that are going on during your game, either business or personal, and that disconnection is simply not an option for people in this day and age.
Vending Certainly, club vendors need to generate sufficient revenue to cover the cost of their contracts with the clubs. That said, the cost of food at a game is excessive and serves as a disincentive in comparison to sitting at home and watching the game on a High Definition television.
Red Zone Or, better yet, I can just sit at home and watch the best parts of every NFL game in real time. Why in the world would I watch the Browns/ Dolphins match up when I could watch Red Zone?
Team Ticket Policies I can only speak for dealing with the Browns, so I'll use them as an example of 'the same thing happens every year.'
The Browns only sell Club Seats (well, every seat, really) in a season ticket package. As Club Seats go, they aren't unreasonably priced. However, I'm not a Browns fan, so I have no interest in a season ticket package.
But, you could interest me, perhaps, in a half season package. I'll even spring for an exhibition game.
So I e-mail the Browns prior to the start of the season to inquire if this type of package is available. They say "no" and attempt to sell me a full season package, which, because I'm not a Browns fan, I refuse.
Invariably, the Browns will suck. With three home games remaining, I will get an e-mail from the Browns ticket office offering to sell me individual Club Level seats to each of their remaining home games. Inventory that's already lost, because they didn't have buyers to begin with, that remains unsold because the on the field product is crap.
Compounding matters, in the 1990s, people were stupid enough to buy into the idea of a Personal Seat License. This is the insane idea that you will pay for the privilege of being able to pay for tickets. And people do this. Seriously. And those teams that foisted this scam on people in the 1990s continue to do so, and continue to expect them to pay, today. And further, they expect potential new season ticket holders to participate in the same scam, when there are more than enough after market outlets selling tickets at or below face value that those people who might otherwise make the investment can simple find situational buyers elsewhere.
Fans Finally, let's talk about fans. It only takes one drunk asshole to ruin an entire section, and almost every large scale sporting event has one in every section. And I guess this makes me a grumpy old man, but I just don't have the patience to deal with it any more. My spouse is a visiting team fan in nearly every stadium we travel to, and even when the team she roots for wins, which is almost always, fortunately, the amount of verbal abuse she has to endure before, during and after the game in most places (Buffalo being a notable exception) isn't worth the cost of the ticket to the event.
And you can toss all of the mock bravado responses out that you want, but the fact remains that in any other business in which one is asked to fork over money, enduring harassment during the experience would warrant a refund. Yet, for some reason, we find this type of behavior culturally acceptable, even expected, at sporting events.
And I think, more than almost anything I've mentioned above, it might be dealing with other fans, a small but not insignificant percentage of which are liquored up assholes, is the tipping point that is driving away people from attending sporting events in person. This, specifically, is an NFL problem, a problem about which the league does, or really can do, little. You can't give everyone walking into the stadium a breathalyzer and an asshole personality test. You can create "family sections", but you can't make alcohol sales so stringent that they choke out the stadium vendor's ability to make a profit.
And it's one to which little attention is paid. Stadium security presence is essentially treated as a "text us if you see anyone out of line" type of problem which means that, in most cases, it isn't addressed at all. Tailgating is encouraged. And there's nothing wrong with that except it fosters a very specific subculture of binge drinking reflected best by guys like the Washington Redskins Dead Tree Crew.
In the meantime, attendance will continue to decline, as technology improves the home experience and sports fan interests continue to diversify. What does the future hold? More of the same as fans drip, drip, drip away.
