http://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/nfl-football-moms-kids/ This coincides with a decline in NFL viewers over the past few years and it's pretty interesting. Focus: is football on the decline? If so, what's replacing it? My theory is their marketing to family is going to fuck them over. Trying to attract women is going to drive men away (happens with every sport). Also, having football as family friendly doesn't really jive with the new single parent dynamic that's becoming the norm. In addition, a 330 pound offensive lineman isn't really a mainstream marketable professional athlete anywhere else on earth. I think of other sports that have stars with sex appeal to the other gender and appearances of health and athletic prowess, and football outside of a few exceptions, doesn't have it. Granted, to play football you have to be strong and skilled, but seeing Vince Wilfork as a pro athlete and ideal is a bit of a stretch. Half the damned team is a poster child for obesity? Finally, I think as a violent aggressive sport, it really doesn't make sense to seek mom's approval. Football as we know it, is likely doomed. Long live rugby and MMA?
Hockey is going to replace football. No I'm not drunk, I 'm just kidding. Football also has a supply problem, less and less kids are playing the game. If I ever have kids of my own they can basically do anything but play football. I kind of get the feeling we'll start seeing more innercity kids playing soccer. Its cheap, doesn't take much to play. Biggest issue is the real money is over seas and its kind of hard to connect with the game over here. I think we're already starting to see some of our exceptional athletes chosing soccer over football and trust me, the world is scared if our elite athletes start playing their game because if they do, the world cup is ours.
Football aint going anywhere. I hear explanations, ehh the rules are driving people away, eehhh the political talk is driving people away, marketing to women really? The NFL makes billions of dollars a year. I just can't see any sort of boxing like decline, or even baseball, for football anytime in the near future. Viewership might not be on the constant increase but it's far from dying. I for one wouldn't mind to see American MLS take off more. Ive gotten into the EPL somewhat in the past few years and enjoy it as a decent secondary to football. More watchable on TV than fucking baseball. There has been a big push by local investors to get an expansion team in Cincinnati. Once Cincy teams start shitting the bed each year, it is nice to have an alternative since we don't have a pro basketball team.
Football is still the most popular high school sport here in Minnesota but on the decline: Frankly this is fine by me, I never played or seriously followed football and if I have kids would rather them do other sports too. Minnesota has always been a strong wrestling state but I'm still surprised to see the participation grew by 7.1% in that time. Both are potentially dangerous contact sports but you don't see the kind of injuries in wrasslin' that you do in foosball. Interestingly the fastest growing sport in Minnesota is shotgun shooting, in 2008 only 30 students statewide participated in sanctioned trapshooting events and now in 2016 that number is over 10,000. There's both spring and fall seasons that will compete with other sports so I bet some of the team shooters used to be football players. Even if it isn't growing much, hockey will no doubt always be alive and well in Minnesota.
I hope we don't "go" anywhere. Clutch's response that trojanstf quoted was in direct response to the comment about inner city kids, not kids as a whole.
I really doubt it. Football isn't in decline so much as it is leveling out after its zenith. Football comes with safety risks, just like any other sport. Rugby might be more dangerous, seriously doubt we're going to see some sort of mass migration in that direction. Soccer might become more popular, but it's not going to replace it. Being a fighter in the UFC is way more dangerous than being in the nfl, but that isn't train to hop on right now. I bet in 5-10 years we're going to start seeing a lot less articles about NFL safety as people get sick of talking about it. Watching the European countries lose their shit, mainly for the reason you just posted, would be so awesome.
I didn't read what he was responding to and fired that one off a little (very) quickly. In short. Yeah I'm an idiot.
With the recent reports of wide-spread sexual abuse by coaches on minor players in England, I don't think the gay opinion is going anywhere for a long time. (I know, it's really pedophilia, but it's still male/male sex.)