NFL Season Will Get A Little Longer
March 26, 2009
This could be bad news to some and great news to others.
The National Football League owns are planning to take a vote in May on plans to lengthen the regular season though it is unlikely that the new longer season would start until 2011. They are planning to increase the NFL football season by 17 or possibly even 18 games.
It would also include reducing preseason games by at least one. All this is an effort explained NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to “[increase] value” in this challenging economic climate the county finds itself in. Regardless of what happens there is little chance that the football season will remain at its current 16 regular season games.
I for one do not have a problem with this. I love football and one or two more meaningful regular season games is good news. I hate the preseason. It means nothing. Its just a way for teams to evaluate their new talent and see where they stand. I feel that they can have scrimmage games for this. Its also a quick way for owners to make a little money off fans who are so football starved after not seeing any games since January that they are still willing to pay good money to see a meaningless game rationalizing that at least they get to see that pigskin flying again.
But thinking about the players point of view I can see how they would be against it. Its a brutal sport that ranks number one is physicality among all the top pro sports in the United States. Guys are usually beat up and bruised after 16 games and while one or two more games may be exciting or no big deal to us we are not the ones actually having to play it. This presents more opportunities more players to get injured and everyone not going to into the postseason 100% healthy.
And even though the idea of more football is obviously appealing to most fans, if we really think hard about it, at the end of week 17, has anyone ever thought, “That really needed to be longer”? Sixteen games is plenty to determine who’s the best team out there. There is only so many Sunday and Monday night football games we need in a year. We have to make room for the NBA and MBL season too (just playing).
One can see the good and the bad in this. Players do not want to be paid less and owners need to make some changes to keep their revenue intact. Fans are going not to get a choice,surprise, surprise, because anything that the owners would approve that would make them more money and sell more NFL tickets, the owners are going to approve. Records are going to fall. Careers are going to get a little shorter. The regular season’s going to get longer, whether it’s a good idea or not. Coors and Budweiser stand to sell more beer as well. I would start buying stock in them today. How many extra million cans of beer are going to be sold as a result of this?
