The National Football League is feeling a bit threatened these days. The rocketing growth of soccer has garnered a large following and is now to the point of reducing football’s money flow. OUCH!!! So, to defend the money–essential to keep everybody in the business happy–they have added another game to the regular season schedule. The added money from network advertising will help with the loss of popularity issue–at least, for the time being. As an alternative, they considered just adding another 100 commercial interruptions to each telecast; but that would mean each telecast would be 45 minutes longer. They’re afraid of that additional 45 minutes as the faithful viewers might lose interest in a game that goes on and on for over 4 hours. Or maybe they were just concerned that after so many beers a significant number of viewers would miss the end of the game and the resulting frustration might discourage future viewing. Besides, their marketing consultants probably told them the best course of action. This serves three purposes: first, network execs have someone to blame if it doesn’t work; second, network execs won’t be required to come up with any new ideas on their own; and third, it may force networks to schedule soccer games at less convenient watching times–thereby delaying the growth of the sport and the inevitable dominance of soccer. As the world turns…
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