Will People Really Quit Watching The NFL?

Are people quitting the NFL? I doubt it. I'm sure there will be plenty of calls to after this weekend, but the reality of a boring Sunday hasn't set in. In fact, this past weekend NFL viewership was up.

The NFL has problems, but protests about the protests (and probably protests about the protests of the protests and so on) have a few people threatening to give up the game. I just don't think it's going to have any real impact on the N.F.L. Some will say that the N.F.L. was already being hurt by these protests, but I'm not buying it.

The reason NFL viewership was waning, along with everything else is, that attention spans are getting shorter. That's it. I can't dedicate five hours to game, I can barely make it through a 90-minute movie. Why would I sit and watch a play analyzed and run back and forth when I saw it the first time? A lot of people are citing "boring games". To people like me, they're all boring games. I haven't watched a full football game, pro or college, since somewhere in the middle of the Mike Leach era (which was longer ago than you think).

I seriously doubt the average Americans ability to commit to a cause too. I don't believe for one minute that anyone who truly cared about football shed one tear and turned it off because something happened before the first commercial break that bothered them. It's impossible to prove, but I'm calling bull on this one.  Myself, I haven't had chicken from a certain place since I found out they contributed to what I consider some very hateful causes. They even bring their food around for free and I pass every time. I've made a seven-year commitment, but here's the secret: I never really thought the food was that good, to begin with. The people who really loved a team/the game will drift back and will play it all down just like the people who burned Beatles records in the sixties.

So, a few people who claim to be "patriots" can talk all the noise they want about abandoning the NFL they want. The NFL is a $14 billion dollar business and they are on their way to making much, much more. The NFL is going to do just fine. Protests won't impact the NFL, only attention spans will.