Optometric Insight Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 From WSJ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303561504577495083707417526.html: I could see a lot of fans doing this. And coaches. There would have to be some time delay or the other team could just change the play according to the other teams call. Or maybe I'm just over thinking this... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KD in CA Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 How many kids repeatedly put the marker on "pass" on 3rd and 2? Not many back in 70s. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris heff Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 Frankly ... I go to a football game to watch the game as it happens on the field while enjoying the energy of the crowd around me. I don't need a lot of technology but I appreciate instant replays after every play rather than selective replays. I also want to have a running out of town scoreboard. Statistical updates are nice but that's what I have Murph in my ear for (And for so many wonderful years Van.). I do not need a stadium with bells and whistles ... I want great sight lines and reasonable priced tickets. I believe that at THE RALPH I get what I want from a game. It's nice to have the video screens in the halls so when I am off to get food/beer or hit the men's room I can still see the game. It's three hours of live action ... if I really want a techno game I'll sit at home with my NFL TICKET plus RED ZONE and just keep my head spinning. It is really about 30 minutes of live action, it just takes three hours. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CodeMonkey Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 I disagree with the hockey point. But as far as the length of the games watching live - I can live with most of the breaks but that scenario of: 1) a score. 2) a Tv timeout 3)kickoff 4) Tv timeout is absolutelu brutal!! At least they don't go to commercial between a TD and the extra point. Yet. I agree that there's a lot of dead time to fill during an NFL game. I guess it's just a matter of how they go about doing it with the constant media bombardment. Between the commercialization of the sport and the catering to attention deficiters, the stadium experience is not so great. And I totally agree with Offsides's point about personal electronic devices and football games not going together. You're supposed to be yelling and screaming and if you aren't clapping with your hands, the only excuse is that you're holding a beer. Can you imagine a football game where people have their noses buried in their smart phones while the game is going on? The whole concept of wi-fi in the stadium is ridiculous. I think the NFL is is just aggressively trying to maintain interest in going to the stadiums in every way they can. Like you have said, there is so much dead time during the game at the stadium with all the commercial breaks for TV they are trying to give people options. For the fantasy football people for example, they can keep tabs on their teams. Others can stream replays of the game they are at if they want to see the plays better. Wi-fi in the stadium simply makes sense these days. It's not 1960 any more after all. Last season the only games I watched live on TV were Bills games. The few others that I watched (my interest in football other than the Bills has been decreasing dramatically in recent years) I recorded and stripped out the commercials automatically. Watching those games became very tolerable and did not take up nearly so much of my time (I also fast forward manually past halftime). I have been toying with the idea of doing the same for Bills games this season. That way I can enjoy the afternoons with my family and we can all sit and watch the game during or after dinner. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Optometric Insight Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 (edited) Last season the only games I watched live on TV were Bills games. The few others that I watched (my interest in football other than the Bills has been decreasing dramatically in recent years) I recorded and stripped out the commercials automatically. Watching those games became very tolerable and did not take up nearly so much of my time (I also fast forward manually past halftime). I have been toying with the idea of doing the same for Bills games this season. That way I can enjoy the afternoons with my family and we can all sit and watch the game during or after dinner. I could never do that with a Bills game if I had the choice. I would just be so anxious and wonder what was happening with the game. Edited June 30, 2012 by Teen Insight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chris heff Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 The Ralph had at the time it was built (along with Arrowhead, which not coinsendensly was designed by the same firm and was very similar), the best sight lines in the league, great design for a stadium IMHO. Jumbotrons are cool for replays, but Dallas has what? a more than 1billion$ stadium? When I think about billion dollars, IDK, I think about starving children and out of control poverty, (this is true in terms of defense money too). And I think wow, richest country on the globe and building toys for the rich is more important than feeding people. I apoligise in advance for my liberalness and getting off topic a bit. I am sure it some how makes for a great game day experience for a few people and if I remember right it was Jerry Jones money (which he is free to do whatever he wants with). I just don't want to see BFLO with anything remotely like that. Interestingly enough, if they would have spent the money they spent on Rich on the Rockpile today we could have a similar situation to Greenbay @ Lambeau field and a Downtown stadium to boot. My Dad hated RW with a passion for blackmailing Bflo into building "the Ralph" and not fixing up War Memorial and I have to agree 40 years on. I have fond memories of the Old Rock Pile, but it was a dump and I'm not sure it was salvageable. There was also no parking. I remember going to a game with my father, two kids directed him to park in a driveway for which he paid them. After the game there was a really angry woman standing next to our car yelling at my father for parking in her driveway. She had been at church. The two kids didn't live there. My father kept apologizing, she kept yelling, I couldn't stop laughing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Offside Number 76 Posted June 30, 2012 Share Posted June 30, 2012 (edited) It is really about 30 minutes of live action, it just takes three hours. Last figure I saw was ten and a half minutes. EDIT: Here's a WSJ article from 2010; 11 minutes: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406.html Edited June 30, 2012 by Offsides Number 76 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
San Jose Bills Fan Posted June 30, 2012 Author Share Posted June 30, 2012 From WSJ http://online.wsj.co...707417526.html: I could see a lot of fans doing this. This is an idea I like a lot and all of these posts make really good points. I should clarify my thoughts a bit. Living and working in the Silicon Valley, I am not a Luddite. I accept the inevitable increase in technology and try to embrace them and keep up even though computers are not really of my generation. I also love the telemetry used in sports broadcasts these days… auto racing does an incredible job… being able to pick your camera, seeing how fast the car is traveling, how many rpms the engine is running at, what gear the driver is in, when he's applying his brakes, etc. I am not anti-technology. My wider issue I think is the degree to which people become oblivious of the world around them as they immerse themselves in their personal electronics. My wife and I were visiting friends some time back and at dinner, our friends were on their iPhones (my wife and I choose at this point not to have smart phones although the apps for these devices are outrageous). I thought it was a bit rude but also hilarious and I had our waiter take a picture of my wife and I sitting their dumbstruck while our friends were glued to their iPhones. It's a pretty funny picture. There's a difference between your usual after work routine (television, computer, etc) and when you're "venturing into the outside world" as I put it. I think there's something lost when people don't notice the world around them because they're checking emails as they walk down the street. Don't even get me (or others) started on talking or texting while driving. I already mentioned witnessing pedestrians almost getting hit by vehicles while crossing intersections. I guess the real issues are the sadness and sometimes contempt I feel towards people who choose not to be aware of their surroundings. Personal safety, and consideration to others also has to do with my feelings on this issue. I guess I'm a stodgy old "purist" and would like to see live sporting events exist more as they did back when I was younger, knowing full well that those days are rapidly disappearing. You have to admit though, when someone builds a Jumbotron so big that it decreases the area in which the game can be played (I'm talking to you, Jerry Jones), then something's gone too far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
San Jose Bills Fan Posted July 10, 2012 Author Share Posted July 10, 2012 More on this topic. The NFL paid attendance has been in decline for the past 7 seasons: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/07/08/after-peaking-in-2007-nfl-attendance-steadily-has-declined/ The question is why? Florio harvested over 150 comments from that blog post and according to the comments, the issue is the cost of attending a game: "But since in many respects the NFL sets the agenda for its coverage by talking not about dropping prices but by adding bells and whistles, no one in the media seems to be sensitive to the burgeoning uprising of fans who are voting with their wallets. And so, while it’s critical to make the in-stadium experience at least as good as the home experience, the bottom line is the bottom line. Unless and until owners are willing to give up some of the windfall that comes from $13 tubs of stale popcorn and one beer that costs more than a six-pack at a store, more and more people when faced with the prospect of schlepping to the local stadium will borrow a quote from Lee Corso and stay home." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CodeMonkey Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 (edited) I agree about the cost issue. Before it's said and done I'm probably going to spend $250 taking my family of 5 to a meaningless preseason game (kids day) where the starters will play half the game if we are lucky. Considerably more than that for a regular season game. And Buffalo is among the cheapest in the league. It's easy to see how a great many people simply cannot afford to attend games even if they wanted to. Edited July 10, 2012 by CodeMonkey Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Canadian Bills Fan Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I would love to have a dedicated jumbotron/scoreboard that has up to date scores from around the league as well as the top player stats just like nfl.com has during games. Most fans play fantasy football and think it would be a good idea to have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoSaint Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I would love to have a dedicated jumbotron/scoreboard that has up to date scores from around the league as well as the top player stats just like nfl.com has during games. Most fans play fantasy football and think it would be a good idea to have. i dont even get dedicated stats for the game im watching here in new orleans. very frustrating - especially down the stretch with records being broken last year. fans in the stadium had to track with texts from home - which is spotty due to awful service in the dome. local scoreboard is down and distance, time, and score only, and anything out of town is score and i believe quarter only. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CodeMonkey Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 The whole cost thing got me thinking that in recent years the NFL has been trying to make games more family friendly in order to sell more tickets to families. While at the same time the ticket prices are so high (talking entire NFL, not just Buffalo) a large number of people cannot afford 4 tickets or more per game. I wonder if the smarter play by the NFL is to drop the family friendly facade and market it as an adult experience. Its easier for a guy and his buddies to buy 1 ticket each than it is for each guy to buy 4 or more in order to bring his entire family. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
weehawk Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Fond memories? Really? I went to some games there as a kid. My god it was awful. Just going from your car to the front gate was like a trip through downtown Mogadishu. The inner city kids trolling for victims on the way in and the broken car windows on the way out. It's why most cities in the 70s and 80s built their facilities on the outskirts of town. No one wanted their new stadium or arena built in the city. No way was a modern stadium ever going to be built at the Rockpile site and there was no way to renovate the existing heap of a building. I have fond memories of the Old Rock Pile, but it was a dump and I'm not sure it was salvageable. There was also no parking. I remember going to a game with my father, two kids directed him to park in a driveway for which he paid them. After the game there was a really angry woman standing next to our car yelling at my father for parking in her driveway. She had been at church. The two kids didn't live there. My father kept apologizing, she kept yelling, I couldn't stop laughing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpberr Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 I'm with the more is less crowd. Less music, less noise, less timeouts, less alcohol. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
section122 Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 More on this topic. The NFL paid attendance has been in decline for the past 7 seasons: "But since in many respects the NFL sets the agenda for its coverage by talking not about dropping prices but by adding bells and whistles, no one in the media seems to be sensitive to the burgeoning uprising of fans who are voting with their wallets. And so, while it’s critical to make the in-stadium experience at least as good as the home experience, the bottom line is the bottom line. Unless and until owners are willing to give up some of the windfall that comes from $13 tubs of stale popcorn and one beer that costs more than a six-pack at a store, more and more people when faced with the prospect of schlepping to the local stadium will borrow a quote from Lee Corso and stay home." I agree about the cost issue. Before it's said and done I'm probably going to spend $250 taking my family of 5 to a meaningless preseason game (kids day) where the starters will play half the game if we are lucky. Considerably more than that for a regular season game. And Buffalo is among the cheapest in the league. It's easy to see how a great many people simply cannot afford to attend games even if they wanted to. The whole cost thing got me thinking that in recent years the NFL has been trying to make games more family friendly in order to sell more tickets to families. While at the same time the ticket prices are so high (talking entire NFL, not just Buffalo) a large number of people cannot afford 4 tickets or more per game. I wonder if the smarter play by the NFL is to drop the family friendly facade and market it as an adult experience. Its easier for a guy and his buddies to buy 1 ticket each than it is for each guy to buy 4 or more in order to bring his entire family. I agree completely with this. 3 Friends and myself had seasons for 5 years. Tickets cost about $50 a game, tolls and gas were $50, food and beer for tailgating, and beer inside the stadium worked out to about $100 a man. Now we do it at home and it costs less than $100 combined. I love the stadium experience. I am willing to pay extra for it. However, I can't justify the ticket and inside stadium costs. When it is cold outside and I need coffee or hot chocolate I don't want to pay 4 bucks for it. When it is hot outside I don't want to pay 4 bucks for a bottle of water. I don't need more technology - I need affordability! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Billsrhody Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 This is an idea I like a lot and all of these posts make really good points. I should clarify my thoughts a bit. Living and working in the Silicon Valley, I am not a Luddite. I accept the inevitable increase in technology and try to embrace them and keep up even though computers are not really of my generation. I also love the telemetry used in sports broadcasts these days… auto racing does an incredible job… being able to pick your camera, seeing how fast the car is traveling, how many rpms the engine is running at, what gear the driver is in, when he's applying his brakes, etc. I am not anti-technology. My wider issue I think is the degree to which people become oblivious of the world around them as they immerse themselves in their personal electronics. My wife and I were visiting friends some time back and at dinner, our friends were on their iPhones (my wife and I choose at this point not to have smart phones although the apps for these devices are outrageous). I thought it was a bit rude but also hilarious and I had our waiter take a picture of my wife and I sitting their dumbstruck while our friends were glued to their iPhones. It's a pretty funny picture. There's a difference between your usual after work routine (television, computer, etc) and when you're "venturing into the outside world" as I put it. I think there's something lost when people don't notice the world around them because they're checking emails as they walk down the street. Don't even get me (or others) started on talking or texting while driving. I already mentioned witnessing pedestrians almost getting hit by vehicles while crossing intersections. I guess the real issues are the sadness and sometimes contempt I feel towards people who choose not to be aware of their surroundings. Personal safety, and consideration to others also has to do with my feelings on this issue. I guess I'm a stodgy old "purist" and would like to see live sporting events exist more as they did back when I was younger, knowing full well that those days are rapidly disappearing. You have to admit though, when someone builds a Jumbotron so big that it decreases the area in which the game can be played (I'm talking to you, Jerry Jones), then something's gone too far! You make some good points, but i think part of the reason why some people dont go to NFL games is because of the lack of comfort and technology. When I'm watching football at home, i'm keeping track of my fantasy team on my computer, flipping between games during commercials, and constantly checking the stats of the bills when they're playing. I'm sure some fans like the "at home" experience more than the "stadium" experience because of the luxury of technology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
plenzmd1 Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 (edited) Cheerleaders that serve beer. several good points in here..but Lordy do I miss vendors. I woul pay extra to have my beer delivered to my seat. I think the NFL is is just aggressively trying to maintain interest in going to the stadiums in every way they can. Like you have said, there is so much dead time during the game at the stadium with all the commercial breaks for TV they are trying to give people options. For the fantasy football people for example, they can keep tabs on their teams. Others can stream replays of the game they are at if they want to see the plays better. Wi-fi in the stadium simply makes sense these days. It's not 1960 any more after all. Last season the only games I watched live on TV were Bills games. The few others that I watched (my interest in football other than the Bills has been decreasing dramatically in recent years) I recorded and stripped out the commercials automatically. Watching those games became very tolerable and did not take up nearly so much of my time (I also fast forward manually past halftime). I have been toying with the idea of doing the same for Bills games this season. That way I can enjoy the afternoons with my family and we can all sit and watch the game during or after dinner. I watch almost 100% of Bills game delayed like this, and have been foe over 10 years..why I love 1.00 pm games. Best time of year is fall, no way giving that up..plus I just love skipping the commercials . Being in Richmond, and the Bills sucking that whole time..never worry bout hearing a score or seeing the game in restaurant etc.. I Edited July 10, 2012 by plenzmd1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoSaint Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 (edited) I agree completely with this. 3 Friends and myself had seasons for 5 years. Tickets cost about $50 a game, tolls and gas were $50, food and beer for tailgating, and beer inside the stadium worked out to about $100 a man. Now we do it at home and it costs less than $100 combined. I love the stadium experience. I am willing to pay extra for it. However, I can't justify the ticket and inside stadium costs. When it is cold outside and I need coffee or hot chocolate I don't want to pay 4 bucks for it. When it is hot outside I don't want to pay 4 bucks for a bottle of water. I don't need more technology - I need affordability! Truly your paying for chairs that are less comfortable, an angle you'd never stand for on tv, lack of access to change the channel on commercials, and a lot of inconveniences, in exchange for the thrill of saying "I was there" and cheering with 80k. Some days it's easier to justify than others. It would be nice to see that gap close, and prices rise slower. Edited July 10, 2012 by NoSaint Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fan in San Diego Posted July 10, 2012 Share Posted July 10, 2012 Former Clarence Red Raider, Colgate Red Raider, Washington Redskin safety and present-day President of the Green Bay Packers, Mark Murphy made an interesting comment recently. "Our business is very competitive," Packers President Mark Murphy told the Green Bay Press-Gazette. "We're competing with ourselves, in a sense, because TV is so good and we want to make sure the experience in the stadium is unique. It really focuses on technology." I wonder if Murphy is truly buying into Roger Goodell's mandate that the NFL stadium experience become more technological and that fans are able to enjoy high speed wi-fi so that they can use their smart phones and tablets to entertain themselves even as an actual game is going on right in front of their very eyes. Admittedly this might be a subject that is interesting to me only but I think it's fascinating that Jerry Jones builds the largest television in the world to put in his football stadium and that on top of that (pardon the wordplay) he was unwilling to raise the height of said television to eliminate the risk of punts hitting it. In other words, the implication that the television has become more important than the game. Moreover I believe I read that some of the seats at the very top of the Cowboys Stadium have no line of sight to parts of the field. I guess I'm old school (maybe just old) and look to the football stadium as a place of both sanctity and sanctuary… respecting being in the moment of witnessing the greatest football on earth and not being bothered by the usual distractions in life (media). I feel like it should be a place which commands our undivided attention for a few hours. It was one thing when the soundtrack to a sporting event went from being the crowd itself to it being the constant barrage of music, video, and message boards. But when the Jumbotron encroaches on the physical space of the game, then something seems wrong. There are a lot of related ideas to this discussion… the fact that a player running for the end zone often uses the Jumbotron to see how closely he's being pursued by other players for instance. For some reason, when I think of people and their personal electronic devices, it makes me think of the times I've watched pedestrians almost getting hit by cars when crossing through intersections… and the analog of that behavior in the days before wireless devices ("He never saw that lion hiding in the tall grass"). Do we not lose something when we choose not to pay attention to that which is right before our very eyes? I reflect on the fact that at AT&T Park in San Francisco, that every concourse has a view of the field and at virtually every concession stand, one can look through the stand and out onto the field. This ballpark, IMO is the greatest sports arena every constructed. Every seat is excellent. Except for the unbearably beautiful panoramas of the surrounding bay, the stadium puts the game on a pedestal. The playing field, not the television set, is the center of the universe. How do all of you feel about ridiculously huge video boards and high-speed internet in stadiums? Is this something the NFL should be striving for? Are there better, less-technological things the NFL could do to improve the stadium experience? Yes for instant replays of the plays. I can't tell you how many times I was distracted by something, missed the play and needed instant replay to see the play. I now prefer to be at home vs. the stadium to watch the game. No line for the bathroom and the snacks are dirt cheap compared to stadium prices. I don't pay to park my car and don't have to get in big lines to leave. NFL has become a televised sport that exceeds the live experience IMHO. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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