I would not mess at all with the NFL pre-season and regular season schedule. 16 regular season games already inflicts more than enough physical damage on the players, 2 additional meaningful games seems like a poor decision for everyone's health.
Oh, but the fact that teams force fans to pay for stupid pre-season games bothers you?
Please believe a lot of the cost of the forced payment for those shitty games is already reflected in the pricing of the whole package. If you just made season tickets for the regular season and sold pre-season games as single game packages the price of regular season tickets would go up quite a bit. I would be one surprised dude if the cost of season tickets did not increase if the NFL went to a 2-18 format instead of a 4-16 format.
Look, the NFL is hugely popular, so the league will find ways to extract money from its fans because the fans are like a giant mass of twitching meth addicts. So let's not mess with the health of the players which provide the excellent product we all enjoy by making them beat the hell out of each other two more times a year.
Well said, Bienemy.
And to have the audacity to black out preseason games. For pure entertainment value, preseason games are steaming piles of shit. For the NFL to pretend in both ticket prices and policy that preseason games are equivalent to regular games is absolutely absurd. Black outs are a slap in the face to fans. Preseason games are nothing more than a method of screwing season ticket holders. But then there is that free box of popcorn with each $800 season ticket purchase:
http://www.bengals.com/tickets/season-tickets.html
Plus, for a limited time only, if you purchase new Season Tickets, you will receive a voucher for a free box of popcorn to be redeemed at any home game this fall at Paul Brown Stadium to help you take in the show!
On that happy note, when the games are blacked out it isn't so bad to watch them the next day since the games suck so bad.
Posted by: Rich | August 26, 2010 at 03:37 PM
Just a Canadian's point of view.
I'm a big CFL fan and while comparing an 8 team minor/developmental league to the 32 team major league is comparing apples and oranges......one thing I *don't* like about the CFL is the 2 game preseason, 18 game schedule. While they had a great opening game this year, *usually* the opening week games really suck and you feel like you just watched a practice that got to count in the standings.
The 18 game schedule would be strictly business (more fans want to watch games that actually count in the standings) but it would just diminish the meaning of the other 16 games a bit plus you'd probably get some really crappy games that would get to count in the final standings.
Not to mention teams that would clinch their playoff fate even *sooner* leading them to rest starters even *earlier* in the late stretch.
16 sits fine by me.
Posted by: BMN | August 26, 2010 at 08:21 PM
How about adding more bye-weeks to deal with the extra physical toll?
Posted by: monotone man | August 26, 2010 at 08:59 PM
I prefer expanded rosters, but that's only because I'd like to see the Bengals keep guys like James Johnson and Cedric Peerman.
Posted by: Wyatt | August 26, 2010 at 10:41 PM
I know this will never happen in a million years, but I just wonder what would happen if a team, say the Bengals, open the gates at PBS during pre-season and said "y'all come". No admission charge. I just can't help but think that the money they would lose at gate admission they'd more than make up at the concession stands and pro shop. Not to mention goodwill that "might" be claimed by not charging admission to these games.
Posted by: Carter Burger | August 27, 2010 at 09:50 AM
Some teams don't even play a full 16 games!(Colts)
Posted by: iknowit | August 27, 2010 at 04:31 PM