Who's buying? (poll)

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Earlier today, I was listening to an episode of The Dan LeBatard Show where they were talking about sports business, and the ratings numbers that just came back from the super bowl. John Skipper (former head of ESPN) said he guesses that there is some number of people for which the super bowl is the only football game they watched all year, but they watched because they don't want to feel left out...

(I am not one of those people, Slim adds parenthetically)

He indicated that the numbers suggest that one in three Americans watched the super bowl, and one in two Americans watched at least part of the super bowl. And then he wondered, if one in three Americans watched the super bowl for free, how many of them would pay to watch it?

... And so, I put it to you, KingsFans: if the super bowl were only available to watch via pay per view, would you still watch? And, if so, what does the number have to be at before you said, "No thanks, I'm good; I'll catch the highlights on Twitter or SportsCenter, or whatever."

For the purposes of this discussion, pirating the game/VPN/bootleg/whatever are all unavailable as options, and so is going to a sports bar. Please don't fight the hypothetical.

 

[hrdboild]

For me it's a no. I only care about the Super Bowl if my team is in it. The other 98% of the time I'd just as soon skip it. The commercials make it almost unbearably long to watch as a game, especially if I'm not invested in the outcome.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I'm not a huge football fan, but I'd probably PPV the Super Bowl, depending on the price. I'd totally do it for $10. At $100, I'm out. Somewhere in the middle is the cut off, but I suppose it would have to be real for me to really nail it down. (Didn't respond in the poll, because I have no idea where the hypothetical price point would be, and the price point is key for me.)

 

[SLAB]

Only if my team was in it.

Basically at any somewhat reasonable number I’d be in for the Niners.

Not paying any money to watch other teams.

 

[kingsboi]

I don't even watch the Superbowl's on most years unless the Bengals are in it like they were last year. That said, I think a lot of people don't actually care about the game but tune in to maybe watch the halftime artists performance and the endless commercials on junk food, cars, alcohol and insurance.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I'm not a huge football fan, but I'd probably PPV the Super Bowl, depending on the price. I'd totally do it for $10. At $100, I'm out. Somewhere in the middle is the cut off, but I suppose it would have to be real for me to really nail it down.

Skipper's thesis seemed to be that, if football is as popular as American sports fans say it is, then the NFL could charge $200 a pop for the Super Bowl, and enough people would pay for it to make it worth the league's while.

 

[LoungeLizard]

Skipper's thesis seemed to be that, if football is as popular as American sports fans say it is, then the NFL could charge $200 a pop for the Super Bowl, and enough people would pay for it to make it worth the league's while.

I replied yes to the poll but I’m not dropping $200 on a PPV Super Bowl unless the Niners are in it. I’d probably go as high as $100 for any other game.

 

[Warhawk]

I voted no. I'd probably kick down some minor amount (say, $20) only if the 49ers are in it; no way I'd pay $200 to watch any football game on TV, 49ers or no. I generally watch the Super Bowl if the 49ers aren't in it just for the halftime show, commercials, and the football pool at work if nothing else. I certainly am not paying to watch the game if my favorite team isn't playing.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

How many wrestling pay per views have I bought in my lifetime.

Spoiler

with my own money, the answer is -0-

jesus, my team was in like half of them the last two decades and pretty sure I'd have given up the superbowl if they pulled that crap.

 

[Löwenherz]

The Super Bowl is the only thing I would ever pay to see on TV.

That said, slamming the game behind a paywall would be “We’re bigger than Jesus!”-level hubris from the NFL, with only slightly less backlash than Lennon got.

113 million people watched the Super Bowl this year. While historically on par for the game itself, it’s disproportionally boosted from the 16 million average viewers during the regular season, and the less than 10 million average for Thursday Night Football exclusively streaming on Amazon Prime.

The NFL has convinced itself the Super Bowl is popular because America is football crazy. But even if you generously and arbitrarily double the average TV audience for the free-to-watch regular season games in a grossly unscientific measurement of football fans in the country, that still accounts for only one quarter of people tuning into the cultural touchstone that the Super Bowl has become.

And it became that because 1: Football generally and the Super Bowl specifically are tailor-made for TV and a one-day-only excuse party for a pseudo-national holiday and 2: It has free, easy access for the more than 80 million casual and non-fans remaining in the above arithmetic to join in on the fun.

The NFL is probably calculating at worst it would see a similar 41% drop in ratings it suffered moving TNF to Prime, but an 11% rise in the coveted 18-34 demographic and a healthy profit exponentially higher than the $13 billion it got from Amazon.

But that kind of inside-the-boardroom thinking misses the point completely. The Super Bowl isn’t the exclusive club everyone’s clambering to get into warranting a cover charge; the Super Bowl is the gateway for non-fans and casuals to become fans. For the vast majority of people, the Super Bowl is the only football game they’ll watch all year. You start making people pay for the privilege and they just won’t.

Remember, an even more important stat than that nonsense about 1/3 of Americans watching or whatever, this was the premier football game of the year between the two best teams in the league and the third highest rated TV program ever … and still 5 million MORE people tuned in for Rihanna’s 20 minute greatest hits halftime show.

 

[QWERTYLICIOUS]

Honestly, I don't give a crap if either (or both) of my teams are playing in the Super Bowl, I would NEVER pay to watch it. The idea is stupid. What's even more stupid is the fact that there will be millions upon millions upon millions who will pay to watch the Super Bowl. And the price won't even matter at the end of the day.

This brings me to one of my biggest issues with society today in general...It's all a money-making scheme. Anywhere, and everywhere, someone sees an opportunity to make a couple of extra bucks, they're gunning for it. And the consumer is going to fall for it. Because the consumer doesn't know any better. The consumer only wants what the consumer wants, and the consumer is going to do everything to get it, even if it costs a pretty penny.

 

[PorchSurfin]

Honestly, I don't give a crap if either (or both) of my teams are playing in the Super Bowl, I would NEVER pay to watch it. The idea is stupid. What's even more stupid is the fact that there will be millions upon millions upon millions who will pay to watch the Super Bowl. And the price won't even matter at the end of the day.







This brings me to one of my biggest issues with society today in general...It's all a money-making scheme. Anywhere, and everywhere, someone sees an opportunity to make a couple of extra bucks, they're gunning for it. And the consumer is going to fall for it. Because the consumer doesn't know any better. The consumer only wants what the consumer wants, and the consumer is going to do everything to get it, even if it costs a pretty penny.

You just defined capitalism, my friend

 

[mrlaze]

I wouldn't pay full price, but Id go to my buddies house who did and give him $5.

 

[Warhawk]

And then he wondered, if one in three Americans watched the super bowl for free, how many of them would pay to watch it?

Another problem with this thought/approach is that the commercial prices they charge are outrageous precisely because of the huge audiences for the game. Some folks only watch for the commercials/halftime show, and if you cut out half your audience, will the advertisers still show up with (supposedly) the best commercials of the year and pay for the spots like they do? Are they going to cut back commercials with a PPV event?

They may end up losing $$$ in the long run (not sure how the financials work out for this).

 

[ESP47]

I'd just stream it. Haven't paid for a PPV since Nixon was in office.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I'd just stream it..

For the purposes of this discussion, pirating the game/VPN/bootleg/whatever are all unavailable as options, and so is going to a sports bar. Please don't fight the hypothetical.

Haven't paid for a PPV since Nixon was in office

We're not talking about CCTV. Pay per view, in the format that is relevant to this discussion, didn't exist until 1981.

 

[macadocious]

I would pay for it and not think twice. The SuperBowl is an event regardless of who is in it. Friends gather, eat, drink. I actually enjoy the SuperBowl more when I don't care who wins, I just get to enjoy the day.

 

[ESP47]

We're not talking about CCTV. Pay per view, in the format that is relevant to this discussion, didn't exist until 1981.

I didn't even exist in 1981.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I didn't even exist in 1981.

Think of all the things you didn't do while Nixon was in office!

 

[pdxKingsFan]

I answered this if I would pay for it, I guess when it comes to watching it without paying for it the answer is "when my team is in it".

Also I would say that if I was paying to watch SuperBowl I would expect to see less commercials. I think we are 20 years past the point of the commercials being more entertaining than the game.

 

[Warhawk]

I think we are 20 years past the point of the commercials being more entertaining than the game.

Nope. I certainly wasn't watching this year's game for the football. The game itself really didn't matter to me in the least.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

The last commercials I truly enjoyed were probably Terry Tate Office Linebacker, and that was just one I think, the rest were online.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

How many wrestling pay per views have I bought in my lifetime.

Spoiler

with my own money, the answer is -0-

The number of wrestling pay per views I've bought is definitely greater than zero, although I'm pretty sure that I haven't bought one since the Network was launched. The first PPV I ordered was SummerSlam '98.

 

[pdxKingsFan]

The number of wrestling pay per views I've bought is definitely greater than zero, although I'm pretty sure that I haven't bought one since the Network was launched. The first PPV I ordered was SummerSlam '98.

bought a couple manias when I lived with my parents, college gf had a black box at her parents house, and I guess I bought a very early ECW PPV when I moved to Santa Barbara in 98.

I did sub the network though.

 

[PorchSurfin]

I watch the super bowl from beginning to end if my 9ers are in it. If they aren't, it's on but I'm 40% watching the game while doing other things, but it is on. Paying for it would make it an only watching if my team is in it and even then a gathering where we pool money like we did for Tyson fights (when I was a kid and that is how us folk did it).



Pay for it just for me and my wife to watch? Naw.