Changing The Game: The "Enhanced" Season
by Tim on Jun 30, 2010 4:11 PM CDT
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A couple of weeks ago, passing a bit below the radar, the NFL formally pitched the idea of an "enhanced season" to the NFLPA. At its crux, the enhanced season proposal calls for (1) expanding the regular season schedule from 16 to 18 games; (2) reducing the preseason from four games to two; (3) adjusting roster size and injured reserve rules; and/or (4) adding a bye week at the start of the regular season. As you can imagine, the NFLPA isn't exactly jazzed about the idea of adding two more regular season games.
George Atallah, assistant executive director of external affairs for the NFLPA, said the union would not have a formal response to the proposal other than to point out three primary concerns with it. He said the NFLPA had "concerns" about the reliability of the data the league provided regarding the impact of an 18-game regular season and injury risks, and how the league would provide "post-career health care." And, as well, how players would be paid, with Atallah suggesting there would have to be "enhanced compensation," to the players since the number of meaningful games is expanding.
Coming at it from a fan's perspective, more football games that count is hardly a bad thing. Additionally, there are few things more absurd than the current NFL practice of charging fans regular-season prices for preseason games. Even though the games are treated by the organizations as little more than glorified scrimmages, we're expected to pay the same amount to witness preseason games at the stadium as we would to see a regular season game with playoff implications. That's fundamentally flawed.
On the other hand, I understand the players' position that two more games means a greater risk of injury. More importantly, players are sure to demand a salary adjustment if an 18-game season becomes a reality. The argument goes, of course, that they're paid for 16 games, and if the number of games increases, then their salaries should increase to account for the two extra games.
Your thoughts, BRB? What about a third option? Namely, reduce the preseason to two games, decrease the price of a preseason ticket to half of what a regular season ticket would cost, and keep the 16-game schedule? I know the loss of revenue wouldn't make the owners happy, but it'd go a long way toward increasing fan satisfaction while simultaneously keeping a relative status quo that'd be unlikely to garner opposition from the NFLPA, which in turn could be a sound negotiating tactic/term as the league and the NFLPA attempt to broker a new CBA.
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Economics
No way the owners would reduce the number of games and the price of games. Supply and demand. In the majority of cases (i.e. excluding Jacksonville and Oakland), fans are willing to pay full price for games. If the owners are hell bent on an 18 game season and I were the NFLPA I would concede this point only if they were willing to agree on retroactive (i.e. covering current vets), comprehensive post career health care AND additional money for the extra games. I think two extra games is a terrible idea. What happens when the Colts are 14-0 and have locked up home field and throw four games instead of just two?
Keep at it 16
Go to three pre-season. Move the season up slightly so the SB isn’t in February. kthxbai!
A Texans fan. Really. No, I'm not kidding.
http://www.battleredblog.com
i like 18
more games that mean something, but less pre season games could hurt i mean Position battles
living the Texas dream
The additional off day
Why can’t there just be two off weeks during the season?
Rudimentary creatures of flesh and blood, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.
Two more games
doesn’t equal more money when they’re getting paid millions. Maybe up the minimum salary for the guys not making much, but that’s about it….
I don’t like the idea of 18 games. My only reason for not liking it is because I actually like the schedule as it is. It’s simple: 6 division games, 4 against another division within your conference (rotates so you get each division every third year), 4 against a division from an opposing conference (rotates so you get each division every four years), and the last 2 games against the in-conference opponents from the same finishing slot as you. 2 more takes away that balance. Makes hard schedules harder potentially….just don’t like it.
Each team has 2 preseason games, why not just cut the fans some slack?
"Lord, beer me strength."
well, the fix is fairly simple, right?
The extra two games are against two of the three out-conference opponents from the same finishing spot as you, with the particular conferences rotating every year.
Making hard schedules harder
and easier schedules easier.
Rudimentary creatures of flesh and blood, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.
or creating parity
But honestly, that seems like a long shot since at least 1 in 4 teams does much better or worse than the year before.
It turns out I overestimated my apathy, but not enough to matter.
ya
but I’m not sure that is a bad thing: parity is one of the best things about the NFL, this just increases that, and if it makes harder schedules for the best teams, that decreases the chances of teams taking late games off, which can only be a good thing.
I don't really understand
Why the owners are pushing this. Would an 18 game schedule get significantly more money out of the tv networks? Because if they are already more or less selling out the preseason games at regular prices, that isn’t much. I doubt they care about fan satisfaction. They have to be crazy to think the players won’t demand more money for this, not to mention the increased payrolls that would seem to result from increasing the roster size, right?
In other words, are those costs really offset all that much by a presumed ability to be able to wring more money out of the networks?
That said, as long as the players get their bit and there are increases in roster sizes, I don’t see how this is anything but a win from the fan perspective, unless it leads to teams like the colts taking off the last three or four games instead of merely the last two. Which would suck, I guess.
by killtacular on Jun 30, 2010 6:57 PM CDT reply actions 1 recs
It actually does make sense.
The owners and their lawyers, and their lawyers’ lawyers have certainly thought this through. The difference is 3 more weeks of programming, and programming is what the NFL sells to the networks…at a figgity fat clip.
When you add two games (in sparkling HDTV, not that Ch. 13 bullshit we get for pre-season games here) & another bye week, you get a whopping 20-week regular season. Now, I’m not the strongest mather out there, but I reckon that adding 15% more to their product would only help at the bargaining table. When it came time to hash out the new TV deals, don’t ya know.
So, in return the players should benefit as well. More money, another bye week, expanded rosters, etc.
And at the end of the day we fans are the real winners, because mo’ football is mo’ bettah!
Ya
if they add in an extra bye week, then that definitely helps. I’m just saying, this is hardly a really competitive market (if the networks balk, who else is going to come in and replace them?), so I don’t know if it will be a straight translation. You have to look at opportunity costs for the networks: while that is two (or three!) weeks more of football, that is three less weeks of running their own shows, which almost surely cost nowhere near as much as NFL games, etc. So how much is it worth? And is it that much more than what the teams will have to pay out to the players in bigger contracts and larger roster sizes? Maybe it will: I just dunno.
You win with that line of logic....
All 16 games don’t matter to all 32 teams, so why push it to 18? Nicely done.
"Lord, beer me strength."
It would give more leeway to teams with bad starts
It would mean a lot for all the teams that are close to .500. Shoot, by that logic teams should just call the season when they are elimated from playoff contention. Any one of those teams that the 16th week didn’t matter to would have loved to have gotten another shot at a meaningful game.
It turns out I overestimated my apathy, but not enough to matter.
Ya
That is the part that worries me on the fan level. A 15-0 or 14-1 team probably won’t really give a shit about the last three games, which just makes a bad situation worse.
Why not spit the difference?
Convert Preseason game 4 into a regular season game, scheduled by the teams and the NFL (So we could have a Texans v. Cowboys game, in the regular season every year) and make the new week 1 the International week.
No more complaining about the possibility of international travel disturbing the season, the NFL gets a bit more international exposure (And Money). Have the league cover the extra game using ticket revenues from the new International games (What is left after that is divided amongst the clubs). I don’t see how this could not work.
Now that's an interesting idea....
1 week overseas…..Japan, Mexico, Canada, Europe each get 4 games…..2 on a Saturday, 2 on a Sunday.
17th game is a permanent interconference rivalry…..every 4th year you pull an alternate team when you face that team in the division. Example: Texans-Cowboys every year, but when the Texans play the NFC East then they take on New Orleans or St. Louis seeing as they’re close.
Lots of regional match-ups could happen like: Washington/Baltimore, Giants/Jets, Philly/Pittsburgh, Dallas/Houston, Indy/Chicago, Jacksonville/Atlanta, Chiefs/Rams, Dolphins/Bucs, 49ers/Raiders, Chargers/Cardinals, and then random hodge-podges like Tennessee/New Orleans, Cincinnati/Carolina, Denver/Seattle, New England/Green Bay, Minnesota/Buffalo, Cleveland/Detroit
"Lord, beer me strength."
by TexansDC on Jul 1, 2010 12:20 AM CDT up reply actions 1 recs
I dunno
you think there are 16 international markets that can support American football games on an annual basis?
Doesn't need to be 16
They could split Japan, Mexico City, Toronto, and England…….heck they could add Germany, Vancouver, China, and Monterrey if need be since I believe all 8 of those areas have had a NFL game before.
"Lord, beer me strength."
hmm
Tokyo, Mexico City, Toronto and London gives you eight teams, right? Maybe somewhere in China could also fill a similar stadium, but I’m dubious about the rest.
How about:
Tokyo, Osaka, Mexico City, London, Aberdeen, Beijing, Toronto, and Berlin.
Ya
I’d doubt Osaka could do it if Tokyo already was, and be even more doubtful about Aberdeen if London already was. Maybe Beijing and Berlin, but even with those, I’m not sure you could have an annual game in even Toronto that would get 70,000+ people every year. Not to mention any of the other possibilities other than I suppose Mexico City and London, which I would guess could.
17th game is a permanent interconference rivalry
everyone who dislikes inter league in baseball says hello.
Rudimentary creatures of flesh and blood, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.
Baseball fans thump on the chest of tradition though
and tradition was that the AL and NL didn’t play in the regular season. The NFL’s different and if they added a 17th game….that’s not a bad way to do it cause who else would you play?
"Lord, beer me strength."
What I mean is
A lot of the current hate for interleague is because of local rivalries, some teams get screwed. Atlanta ends up playing Boston as “rivalry” because they need something for them to do while NY plays NY and the Angels play the Dodgers.
Rudimentary creatures of flesh and blood, you touch my mind, fumbling in ignorance, incapable of understanding.
The Atlanta-Boston rivalry makes some sense with the Boston Braves...
but I get what you’re saying. I imagine it wouldn’t be fun to one of those screwed teams to miss out on a rivalry.
"Lord, beer me strength."
I can assure you
No one in Boston or Atlanta thinks of a Braves-Sox rivalry.
I suppose if all of the stars, moons and planets align it could be possible, but what are the chances of that?
by Rip Jersey on Jul 2, 2010 10:14 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
I like it
The season is too short as it is, and preseason games are retarded. If you could expand the roster a little to accomodate for extra injuries, then I don’t see a problem. The only interesting preseason game is the third one anyway, and it’s only like 1/100000000th as interesting as any regular season game.
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
I agree
Why fight more football? The players will roll over on this once they put up enough of a fight to get some money out of the league, and since eventually it will make everyone more money. This also gives fans two more Sundays with beer and football, it’s a win-win. Except for that guy who has a career-ending injury in Week 18…
I don't really want to see it
Although more football is a good thing it is virtually impossible for players to get through a 16 game season healthy. Adding two more games is just going to make it that much harder. It could become a war of attrition in the playoffs instead of about who has the best team(sometimes it that way now). Hell, my body(mainly liver) is pretty worn out from tailgating by about week 14. 16 games works. Just leave it alone.
If they do it they have to give players a corresponding increase in pay.
As for pre-season games. Full price is absolute bullshit. It won’t change though until they can’t get people to buy tickets…which won’t happen because if you want season tickets you HAVE to buy the full price pre-season games.
"Well, at least our players kept their helmets on, so that showed some intelligence"-Bob McNair
Tim, I think you just told Mr McNair to raise ticket prices for our playoff game
Ouch. As much as I am looking forward to seeing another home playoff game, I hope the Texans don’t try to gouge their faithful season ticket holders.
It took the Astros 44 years to get to the Series, the Oilers-Texans are due to get to the big dance...Go Texans!!!!!
by oiler-texan diehard on Jul 1, 2010 3:37 PM CDT reply actions
I think it's a terrible idea
And not because of the 18 game regular season…
There are alot of players in the league who earn their spots on their teams in the last week or two of the preseason, if you cut the ammount of time a team has to warm up to regular season games you’ll see less and less undrafted free agents actually making it in the league. While they’d “adjust” roster size, it’s not like they’re going to have 70-80 man rosters and unproven players will be given a spot just in case they work out… There’d be alot of pretty good players who’d never get a chance in the NFL with that setup.
I think that's unlikely.
It just changes where thes UDFAs have to earn their spots. Instead of auditioning on the playing field they have to do it on the practice field. If they’re good enough they’ll make the cut. How many of those do you reckon there are, anyway? Maybe one or two per team, max? Any roster expansion would accomodate that, I would think.
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
by tehGrindCrusher on Jul 2, 2010 1:57 AM CDT via mobile up reply actions
Out of the Box
One idea I heard would be to keep the 16 game season but blow it up and completely change it. Each team would play each of the other 15 games in their conference and one game against the other conference against a rival.
I know its a complete change but I like it. It takes away strength of schedule and helps to find the best teams from each conference. Under the format the divisions would no longer matter and the top 6 teams from each conference would go on even if 4 were from the same division.
I like what we have now, seeing as we win most every NFC game we play.
(Now about that AFC South). Anyway that plan would make the division irrelevant, as you would only then play your division rivals once a year (Also tiebreak procedures would then need to be changed as well).
Also
I absolutely hate the use of the word “enhanced.” It makes it sound like someone is going to waterboard the NFL season.
I'll eliminate you like I eliminate gluten from my diet.
by tehGrindCrusher on Jul 2, 2010 1:59 AM CDT via mobile reply actions
makes me think there is some kind of surgery involved
And the result looks good, but is fake…
I suppose if all of the stars, moons and planets align it could be possible, but what are the chances of that?
by Rip Jersey on Jul 2, 2010 10:19 PM CDT via mobile up reply actions
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