Interesting take on RedZone Channel

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

With the advent of RedZone, i'd be curious to know the percentage of fans who literally never watch a full four quarter game. There has to be a good portion of people who put on RedZone and just leave it on all day.

What do you guys think of the NFL embracing the "short attention span fan"? This is either the smartest marketing strategy ever, considering attention spans have shrunk by like 50% since as recently as the 80's and our attentions are being diverted a million different new ways every day, or this is going to be a long term fatal blow, because an entire generation of fans don't really care about the games and are only concerned with short bursts of action and things like fantasy.

The fans who watch RZC are the same fans who would have otherwise watched the local team or the "game of the week"...I mean, those that watch RZC probably watch the Thursday Game, SNF, and/or MNF...I'm not sure I'd call them "short attention span fan"...its just the NFL product is 3h30m+ for 15m of actual gametime...I think fans would rather cut the constant clutter and advertising platform and watch more actual football. I think its less to do with the attention span of the fan and more to do with the antiquated style of broadcast the NFL has...

There is a reason why the NFL's fan culture has evolved or devolved (whichever you choose) into the sports bars, into the other forms of (accepted) gambling, etc.

The NFL has long been a sport driven by gambling. Fantasy is relatively "new", but its been a driving factor for NFL viewership for 15+ years now. Fantasy, like gambling, ain't going anywhere...Fantasy is a form of gambling that is just more "accepted".

The NFL's broadcasting style and format for which they play the game serves two masters...it forces the game to become an event, and as a result, what you see now is how most fans have made that event...uh, more eventful for them.

[Warner2BruceTD]

Are you over estimating how many people have Redzone?

Did I give an estimate?

[Warner2BruceTD]

Let's say something else came along that captured people's imaginations the way fantasy football has, and for whatever reason the fantasy fad either died out or withered away to a point it became insignificant.

How much damage would this do to the league?

In other words, where as gambling was THE driving force behind the growth of the NFL and it's emergence as the real national pastime, a fact which can probably not be disputed, how much of the attraction of the NFL has been taken over by the less threatening (to the league) fantasy explosion?

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

Let's say something else came along that captured people's imaginations the way fantasy football has, and for whatever reason the fantasy fad either died out or withered away to a point it became insignificant.

How much damage would this do to the league?

In other words, where as gambling was THE driving force behind the growth of the NFL and it's emergence as the real national pastime, a fact which can probably not be disputed, how much of the attraction of the NFL has been taken over by the less threatening (to the league) fantasy explosion?

"Black Sunday" is Vegas-speak for first week of the NFL Season.

The NFL is strange...people want to watch...millions of Americans structure their time around the NFL...but, the NFL, more than any other sport, has fans that constantly try and give themselves a reason to watch instead of just watching. If you take away one of the exterior infrastructures...fans will just create something else to give themselves a reason to watch.

The NFL is perhaps the only sport that was built off fans giving themselves a reason to watch moreover a joy of watching the sport for sports sake.

[Warner2BruceTD]

I mean, the NFL & its partners have gone all in catering to fantasy players. RedZone being the most obvious example. The entire marketing angle for RedZone is "follow your fantasy players here".

Stat crawls with inane first quarter information like "Flacco 1/3, 8 yards", NFL insiders obsessed with reporting gameday inactives, FOX no longer showing starting lineups for some games in favor of 'here are the three key players' (all glamour position players), etc. NFL coverage is 90% fantasy driven, 10% for everybody else.

Would a fantasy collapse do irreparable damage to the league at this point? What percentage of viewers wouldn't watch a single game if not for fantasy?

[jms493]

NFL PHILOSOPHY 101 - Proctor - Mr. W2B - 8:00 AM - 8:50

[KINGOFOOTBALL]

I cant watch redzone channel. I dont feel any connection to the games or have any grasp of whats actually going on. I love game mix because the way this league is today theres too many shitty games and it helps me pick the one or two that actually seem interesting. Instant Replay in its current format has taken a long game and made it far too mind numbing for people with short attention spans.

At the end of the day I still like watching marquee matchups and marquee players. But trying to watch a vikings game to see AP is just painful when every big hit is a penalty , every turnover takes 5 minutes to review , and every other TD is a wait and see moment. Why bother when you can just watch non stop scoring ? I may not be a fan of RZC but I understand it completely.

Ill completely disagree with Larry. NFL has been a massive leader in broadcasting changes. Much as I hate monopolies there is no dispute that DTV/NFL combo have pushed sports broadcasting of the NFL miles ahead of all other sports.

-In game menus with score tracking meant no waiting for JBs Mcdonalds game break.
-In game menus with player tracking meant no waiting for end game highlights or ticker to see what "your" rb put up in fantasy.
-Shortcuts allowing you to essentially watch any game that day in a half an hour. Before the overdose and watering down of games this was a huge thing.
-Game mix essentially eliminating the need of the sportsbars multi screen attraction.
-RedZones absolutely masterful handling and editing allowing you to watch basically every score as it happens.
-Mobile apps that allow me to have game mix or individual games whereveer I am..even if its game mix on tablet and main game on my TV.
-I hated it but NFL funneled all post game fans looking for highlights to Sunday Night Football pregame.

Look around you. The NFL didnt create people with short attention spans its responding to them. Brilliantly so. I hate FF fans , I hate short attention span fans. But there nothing antiquated about NFLs delivery system in actuality its light years ahead of everyone elses. The reason SNF or previously MNF can remain marquee games is because of regionalized games to begin with.

In all honesty if the NFL and Roger Goodell in particular werent so hell bent on expanding football days , babying every ball carrier , and overall watering down the product Id say no sport has ever been so brilliantly packaged as the NFL is today. My issues with the NFL are on the field , in the booths , and with the cameras. Not its delivery.

[Hasselbeck]

I love RedZone channel for the most part, the only thing that kills me is when they cut to a useless game no one gives a shit about (probably because like W2B said.. fantasy football and gambling)..

Aside from that, it's awesome IMO. Especially for the early slate of games.

[Glenbino]

I don't get how you guys who say you watch the primetime games can sit through Monday Night Football most weeks.

They've been awful this year to be sure.. still beats watching Two and a Half Men though.

Sent from my LG-P999 using Tapatalk 2

[MvP]

RedZone is great for when I'm forced to watch something like Jets/Jaguars at 1PM, but I only had a month free trial this year so I stopped using it after Week 3 or 4. Also, if the Packers are on and my area isn't showing the game, I connect my laptop to the HDTV and watch it on firstrowsports. If I had Sunday Ticket, though, I would just put on the most interesting matchup and watch that full game. I hate the fantasy football culture and am considering quitting FF after this season. It's dumb luck plus I can't stand talking about it IRL.

[Sportsbuck]

Anymore, the NFL is just kind of stale and boring for me. Sure, I'll watch my Panthers, and probably have other games on as background noise while I do stuff, but I hardly watch the NFL anymore.

I think a large part of that has to do with how uniform offenses have seemed to be throughout the league as of late. On a CFB Saturday, I can't take my eyes off the TV because of all of the creative schemes, offenses, and different attacks I see on display. One game I see Georgia Tech runinng the triple option out of the 'bone, the next I can turn to Alabama railroading a team with a power running attack, and then I could flip over to see Chip Kelly running Oregon's offense up and down the field. The amount of variation and creativity in spread attacks has just made the college game so much more watchable for me, and I'm a guy who appreciates the little nuances of the game such as schemes, coverages, alignments, etc.

RG3 has helped and I hope he and Cam can pave the way for more untraditional offensive attacks to make their way to the league (or back to the league) so that we see some variety in terms of the way teams attack.

[LiquidLarry2GhostWF]

I cant watch redzone channel. I dont feel any connection to the games or have any grasp of whats actually going on. I love game mix because the way this league is today theres too many shitty games and it helps me pick the one or two that actually seem interesting. Instant Replay in its current format has taken a long game and made it far too mind numbing for people with short attention spans.

At the end of the day I still like watching marquee matchups and marquee players. But trying to watch a vikings game to see AP is just painful when every big hit is a penalty , every turnover takes 5 minutes to review , and every other TD is a wait and see moment. Why bother when you can just watch non stop scoring ? I may not be a fan of RZC but I understand it completely.

Ill completely disagree with Larry. NFL has been a massive leader in broadcasting changes. Much as I hate monopolies there is no dispute that DTV/NFL combo have pushed sports broadcasting of the NFL miles ahead of all other sports.

-In game menus with score tracking meant no waiting for JBs Mcdonalds game break.
-In game menus with player tracking meant no waiting for end game highlights or ticker to see what "your" rb put up in fantasy.
-Shortcuts allowing you to essentially watch any game that day in a half an hour. Before the overdose and watering down of games this was a huge thing.
-Game mix essentially eliminating the need of the sportsbars multi screen attraction.
-RedZones absolutely masterful handling and editing allowing you to watch basically every score as it happens.
-Mobile apps that allow me to have game mix or individual games whereveer I am..even if its game mix on tablet and main game on my TV.
-I hated it but NFL funneled all post game fans looking for highlights to Sunday Night Football pregame.

Look around you. The NFL didnt create people with short attention spans its responding to them. Brilliantly so. I hate FF fans , I hate short attention span fans. But there nothing antiquated about NFLs delivery system in actuality its light years ahead of everyone elses. The reason SNF or previously MNF can remain marquee games is because of regionalized games to begin with.

In all honesty if the NFL and Roger Goodell in particular werent so hell bent on expanding football days , babying every ball carrier , and overall watering down the product Id say no sport has ever been so brilliantly packaged as the NFL is today. My issues with the NFL are on the field , in the booths , and with the cameras. Not its delivery.

LOL. You couldn't be more wrong.

The NFL and DTV ripped each of those ideas from other sports entities and broadcasting companies. There is actually very little the NFL broadcasting has invented or innovated. Most of what you see during a football broadcast was done for another sport before it was applied to the NFL, the technology and ideas for DTV and the Sunday Ticket package are no different.

Regionalized games have nothing to do with the popularity of SNF or MNF. Nothing.

The NFL conceptualized the idea of out of market sports packaging, but shortly after, other leagues joined in and have innovated more for the product than the NFL. Much of what you posted about came from Extra Innings. Hell, a lot of the "innovation" in regards to the RZC and Game Mix and even NFL Network itself are rips of NBATV.

Just because they are the biggest and essentially monopolized, doesn't mean they are the leader in innovation of sports broadcasting...they just aren't. Much of what you see in any football broadcast was done elsewhere. First down line? Same technology that gave you the glowing puck. Stat overlays. Baseball. "FoxBox" or expanded tickers and trackers. Baseball. ESPN and MLB have pioneered the idea of internet access to games with feature suites.

What you posted is just wrong, bruh.

[BigBucs]

I didnt purchase redzone for that exact reason. Flashing in and out of diff games is bullshit. I stream my Bucs game if we arent playing a local team (Skins, Ravens) and have the local games on TV in the background. Much rather watch games in their entirety. I have idiotic friends who think they know football but the 1st thing out of their mouth regarding any player is "whats his stats?"

Sunday ticket is/was a waste of money

I like the redzone channel

Instead of having to flipping the channel every two seconds when a commercial comes on.

Its great for fans of out of market teams. I loved Sunday ticket on my PS3 last season but I chose not to go with it this season and went back to the streaming. Why? Because they asked for the whole fee up front when last year they had it so you can pay for it in increments. Didnt skip it because Im cheap but because when my team ends up doing the same shit this season that they did last season (not nearly as bad) I couldnt say fuck this, Im not reing up the last 4 games like I did last year.

We went on an 11 game losing streak last season, I didnt even bother to watch the final 3 games we were so pathetic. This season we just lost 4 in a row, Ill watch the final two games but I wouldnt pay for it.

I don't get how you guys who say you watch the primetime games can sit through Monday Night Football most weeks.

MNF schedule always suck, this season SNF has been knocking it out the park. What will always hurt MNF is them not flexing meaningless games but that probably has more to do with the inconvenience of a short week, Cant just disrupt schedules but the remedy for that would to do it 3 weeks in advance.

[krulmichael]

I usually am streaming the Lions game on my laptop (if the quality is really good I'll hook it up to my TV) and have RedZone on in the background mainly for fantasy reasons.

[BigHouseUSA]

Looked through the article a few hours ago and haven't read the thread, but I've been watching almost exclusively RedZone for a while now. Besides Lions games and any other I consider a great matchup I'll barely ever stick with one game throughout. I'm more interested in what's going on around the league than just one game, football's a very easy sport to move from game-to-game with.