The Future Of Bucs/NFL Games?
May 1st, 2020
Will technology save NFL?
Joe and the King of Pasco County, the Sage of Tampa Bay sports, the Custodian of Canton, Ira Kaufman, have a difference of opinion about what is considered a good thing in sports as we enter the third decade of the 21st century.
Ira is old school. He believes tickets sold is the lone barometer as to the financial health of a sports team. Joe believes that’s 1970s economics.
Joe points to all kinds of data that shows it really doesn’t matter how many folks are in the seats. It’s all about TV revenue, luxury boxes sold, new media revenue and gear sales.
In his most recent pod, Ira said he believes the addition of Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski will eliminate empty seats at the Den of Depression. That is wishful thinking, Joe replied. This isn’t 1996. Most fans realize there are real benefits to watching from home (though going to games is always a blast).
Besides, NFL ticket revenue is less than 16 percent of its gross, and it dropped annually from 2010-2018. If tickets sold were so important, the league would have never dumped the blackout rule (which may have forced Congress to push through legislation).
And that was before The Sickness hit humankind.
With sports leagues debating playing this fall much less this summer, there is a very real possibility “social distancing” practices would be applied to games and make a filled stadium virtually impossible.
Even without restrictions, how many people are willingly going to buy tickets and sit next to complete strangers in a crowded section if there is not yet a vaccine for The Sickness? Joe suspects not enough.
Then there is the distinct possibility NFL games will be played in empty stadiums.
However, could technology give the Bucs a guaranteed sellout each and every game regardless of how many tickets are sold? Sky Sports in England believes there is.
Like American sports, English soccer leagues are considering resuming play with empty stadiums. TV folks and soccer team suits apparently are not hip to the idea (and soccer executives are scared to the death of the prospect, thinking that would ruin their sport from a marketing standpoint).
But Sky Sports seems to have the solution: digital technology that makes the stadium look and sound sold out to TV viewers, no matter how many tickets are sold, writes Richard Edwards of iNews.com.
“Even if a club doesn’t sell all of its seats in the Premier League, if you have one stand that’s particularly empty that results in much lower feedback from the viewer,” says a senior Sky source. “Even when the noise is there, one empty stand really impacts people’s enjoyment of the spectacle. When you add the two in – i.e. the ground is totally empty and totally silent, then it really is an odd experience.
“… People have found closed door matches at international level a bit of a novelty in the past but if you have to watch that multiple times over many months then that will probably devalue the product, which runs the risk of harming of the Premier League’s brand and arguably the broadcasters too.
“It’s not actually that hard to put in CGI moving graphics, even on the side of live action. The challenge is to do it at the scale that’s now required. Can you make Old Trafford look full when you’re moving the camera between all of the angles that cameras have to move between? CGI is easy to do if you have one fixed camera and you’re doing it in one-fixed zone. But think of 24 cameras essentially giving you a 360 degree view. That’s a lot of tech. The tech exists but the challenge of running it at the latency that’s required has never been done before.”
Of course, Team Glazer also owns one of those soccer outfits in England (which to this day drives a pocket of Bucs fans bananas for reasons that are not quite clear). So it will be very interesting for Joe if Sky Sports does this for those soccer games. Would that same technology be adapted for NFL games?
Sky Sports is sort of the BSPN of Great Britain and is owned by Comcast (NBC). Until very recently, NewsCorp (FOX) owned a piece of Sky Sports. Both are NFL broadcast partners.
If the technology works for Sky Sports, one can reason that FOX Sports and NBC could adopt it.
Therefore, aside from a beancounter at One Buc Palace, tickets sold might mean less than the length of a Bucs cheerleader’s skirt.
Or will Ira become like Mr. Winthrop in “Some More of Somoa,” where he bangs his cane constantly on the floor while hollering at his gardener about Bucs ticket sales?
May 1st, 2020 at 5:17 am
You lost me at the beginning Joe with “as we enter the second decade of the 21st century”. I had to look twice to see if you’d actually written this back in 2011.
But to take a stand, I side with both of you. Butts in the seats are important, but ‘The Sickness’ may very well prevent that this Fall. Could we still have football? Most likely, barring a catastrophic re-attack of this COVI-19. The situation at the time though will (hopefully) determine HOW we do that safely.
According to the most recent statistics, over 88% of deaths due to coronavirus have occurred in those 65 years old and older. I’m in that group, so guess what … I won’t be going to any football games until they have a cure (a vaccine or whatever). I’d love to watch football on TV though, but it probably won’t matter one iota to me whether or not there are ‘virtual fans’ in the seats. The entertainment value from my perspective is what happens on the field.
May 1st, 2020 at 5:32 am
“Three Stooges”! Priceless!
Anything CAN be done. It’s the willingness to adapt that’s in question. Free market economies are supposed to reward those that adapt…not bail out those that don’t. It’s not the same world, like it or not.
And, it’s not like the NFL doesn’t have money.
May 1st, 2020 at 5:51 am
Milk from contented coconuts – a beautiful thought. I never knew of such a thing until Tom Brady arrived.
May 1st, 2020 at 6:28 am
This idea is a bit too dystopian for me. I know “perception is reality” to a certain extent, but we still need to cling on to SOME semblance of reality!
May 1st, 2020 at 6:42 am
CGI??????
Ummmmmmmmmm……….noooooooooooooo
More like half empty stadiums………….which bucs fans are already used to.
May 1st, 2020 at 6:46 am
What business faced with losing 16% of its revenue vs most of it would not opt to play without fans…..
It would be easy to play with some fans……tickets could be sold allowing for distancing. Perhaps 25K tickets……not all would be 6′ apart due to sales of 2 to 4 tickets for families etc.
The games will be played.
May 1st, 2020 at 7:11 am
Comcast, the company with close business ties with the Chinese Communist
Party- you know, the ones that brought us the Coronavirus.
I wouldn’t trust them for anything.
May 1st, 2020 at 7:28 am
First, an idea I read that electric cars in a racing series can put out exhaust notes that makes it “sound” like it has some actual balls. Now the idea that we’re going to have fake crowd noise and fake visual aides to make it seem like more people are at games. And while I’m at it – comedies like tropic thunder, eastbound and down etc etc could never get made today with the SJW’s crying and getting c***y. This whole world is going completely homosexual.
May 1st, 2020 at 7:42 am
Fill the freaking stands anything else is stupid! I think people have lost their minds with this virus.
May 1st, 2020 at 7:43 am
Always side with The Sage. Ridiculous technology
May 1st, 2020 at 7:47 am
Why stop there? If the fans in the stands can be “filled-in”, why not the players too? No players’ salaries to pay means more revenue for billionaires and video-game football for all of the millennials who are used to looking at pixels on a screen since birth, anyway. Hell, then we could have Tom Brady as our QB forever! It’s the way of the future!
May 1st, 2020 at 7:51 am
NO!NO! NO! That is the STUPIDIST idea that I have ever heard. As a season ticket holder for over 20 years that is one of the highlights of my week is going to the games and tailgating with other fans I see only during football season. I travel to away games as well and typically I get to two or three away games a year sometimes even go to all eight. As a passionate loyal diehard fan I am TOTALLY against the ideas of empty stadiums.
May 1st, 2020 at 8:02 am
The first year of The Rowdies (1975) they only opened up one side of the stadium, on the other side they put cardboard cut outs of people and called them “fannies”. The Big Sombrero wasn’t even a closed stadium then. But they did win the NASL that year. What’s old is new.
May 1st, 2020 at 8:12 am
I think it is both. But more importantly, the players feed off fan energy too.
Also, look at wwe ratings since they switched to no live audience. They’ve plummeted.
The more likely scenario… is that fans will be paying to watch games on tv if this continues.
And, btw, no business wants to loose 16% of its revenue.
May 1st, 2020 at 8:16 am
Still making my monthly payments for season tickets and wondering WHY? I suppose credits will go towards the 2021 season assuming this virus fear is over. But playing the games without fans would SUCK! And WHY would the players, coaches, TV crews, Refs, doctors etc be will to risk THEIR lives?
And if the risk is low enough for them not to be in danger WHY couldn’t fans go anyway?
May 1st, 2020 at 8:41 am
I think you mean “wouldn’t have dumped the blackout rule”
May 1st, 2020 at 8:43 am
More Luck of the Buc. Just when the first and second level, including the clubs, appear to be sold out as well as most of the 3rd level! I imagine that the team will probably release some more seats sometime but the level of sales has been absolutely incredible.
Last year there were so many unsold club seats and now they are gone. You have to believe the same thing is happening in the suites.
May 1st, 2020 at 8:43 am
Have you checked TicketMaster? Not a lot of seats left.
May 1st, 2020 at 8:47 am
As one of the old dudes here I can tell you this topic has been debated long before Joe and Ira. By the early 70’s at the latest it was clear where this was heading. Joe of course is correct. It’s now a big TV show as much as the old traditional competition where we all head to the stadium.
But even back in the 70’s realized that even past any revenue questions…how do you produce an entertaining show in an empty stadium. How do the players respond?
As for 2020? In the end…again like D.R. excepting any horrible second outbreak…we’ll have football.
It could still be quite entertaining. I think the players will have enough pride to perform and COMPETE regardless of any crowd energy.
THEN THE NFL BITES THE BULLET.
They figure a system to get the young kids in pretty much free of charge. They take temperatures and try to mitigate risk as much as possible. If they are all under 40 and sign off on the risk I say why not.
A stadium full of kids who don’t normally get to see NFL games might actually be more exciting than the rich snoots who show up to be seen.
The Attorneys will dictate our future. Liability is driving a lot of corporate thought right now. Anybody entering a stadium should have to sign a waiver releasing the league or any entity from risk associated with Covid.
May 1st, 2020 at 8:50 am
Joe, how did Gofortheface30’s comment make it through moderation?
May 1st, 2020 at 8:52 am
BTW My plan has a lot of room for creativity.
Any kid in the Buc’s region who makes a B average gets a free ticket and the schools would be involved in organizing with the team. Bus the kids in. The energy in the stadium would be wild and less fortunate kids would actually get to see an NFL game live.
This would not only give the NFL a year of entertaining TV games…but also create an entire new generation of fandom. Some of these kids might even enjoy the experience so much that when they grow up they actually become season ticket holders.
May 1st, 2020 at 9:18 am
This would be news to Chiefs fans.
May 1st, 2020 at 9:23 am
Think of what you are saying: What parent is going to allow their kids to sit with strangers and expose themselves to The Sickness? Shoot, schools may not even be open for fear of exposing kids.
May 1st, 2020 at 9:24 am
Volbuc1 you are absolutely right I have 4 seats on the 30 yard line and will be totally disappointed if I can’t use them
May 1st, 2020 at 9:35 am
Joe
The attorneys will have the last say about that.
I do not worry for the kids at the games or their chaperones if they came in buses…but their grandparents of course become at risk when the kids go back home.
Probably going to be empty stadia. I’ve already read where plenty of restaurant owners don’t wish to open yet until everybody feels safer and they do not face any liability. Were their seats actually six feet apart…25% occupancy etc.
May 1st, 2020 at 9:58 am
I wonder if crowd noise will,be played in the stadiums? It may be hard for players to psychologically get amped up with no fans or noise from the stands. Nobody really brought that aspect up before and yes, they are pros and get paid to,play and they will but my,point is the intensity level,in front of no fans.
May 1st, 2020 at 10:20 am
I skipped to the quoted material and thought the post was about how the Bucs wouldn’t get primetime games because of our stadium attendence problems even in the best times
May 1st, 2020 at 10:26 am
I believe the technology is available for fans to ‘mic up’ at home, and broadcast their cheers(jeers) through the stadium speakers. The players would have the ‘sounds’ of the crowd.
But, having spent a coupe decades on the field, I can tell you that most of the players/coaches/officials don’t pay any attention to the crowd noise. They are concentrating on their job.
May 1st, 2020 at 10:59 am
economics aside, football with fans is so crucial. the enjoyment of that cannot be understated. whether watching the game on TV or physically there. getting up and cheering on third down, that is so much fun! maybe not initially with the season with the sickness or even the bucs since they disappoint but can you imagine the demand for a home playoff game at ray jay?! remember against the niners with all of the flags. that was truly beautiful and i want the bucs to return to that!
May 1st, 2020 at 11:18 am
St. Pete…No! the lawyers are not going to have the last say on playing/attending games. It’s the players and the fans that will decide on playing. In a league made up of a majority black players, many obviously way overweight you may find just a little push back. Not every 25 year old that catches this sails through with no lasting effect. The league and the macho fans on this site can talk all they want about going to packed stadiums, but they will not be the deciding factor.
May 1st, 2020 at 11:40 am
I think team’s biggest concerns regarding playing in empty stadiums is that it could cause season ticket holders and ticket buyers to get comfortable with the idea of not going to the games, even when things get back to normal.
I still plan to go to every game that they allow fans in.
May 1st, 2020 at 11:40 am
They can always do what the Falcons did, pump fake fan noise through the stadium speakers.
May 1st, 2020 at 12:14 pm
That’s an interesting observation and probably spot on.
May 1st, 2020 at 12:41 pm
I have no beef with this as a sports addition but between this and deep fakes our future looks, well, fake
May 1st, 2020 at 2:08 pm
Bucsfaninoregon. It’s funny how you use the word macho in sort of a dismissive context. I am more than happy to you that not all men are created equal. No matter what you libs think. Some people believe it or not are actually strong and healthy. Some people don’t have some weird auto immune disease disorder and never will get it, some people have never smoked or have other bad habits that would make someone more vulnerable. If you want to hide under your bed, you do you and go right ahead. You’re gnna live a scared little life for your remaining days. You do not screw over 300 million people for the sake of 200 thousand or so that may die. That’s illogical and it’s not gnna happen. But you go right on ahead and lock yourself in the bathroom until your savior bill gates can save you with a vaccine
May 2nd, 2020 at 1:29 pm
Hopefully this virus thing will be a thing of the past come fall. I was thinking why not test the fans who enter the stadium & hand out masks. Everyone needs to have masks on. Of course that means having an abundant supply of testing kits. Also by the fall maybe there will be something new to help. Just saying.