It’s Thursday night. In years gone by, Thursday night was a pleasant reminder that the work week was almost over as you started to formulate plans for the upcoming weekend. As Friday dawns, you are filled with happier thoughts about those plans you developed on Thursday night and the great time that you are hoping to have this weekend.
The Carly Simon song “Anticipation” comes to mind. Making you wait for something tends to build your interest and help you feel more satisfied once the long-awaited event finally arrives. Such as Christmas morning. Perhaps it is your birthday or the birthday of one of your children. For some, it’s the first snowfall or the first day of spring.
In the fall, it can be the anticipation of the upcoming cooler weather and the advent of football season, right? Leave it to the NoFunLeague to ruin your Thursday nights during the fall.
A little history is helpful at this point. ESPN started this Thursday night football idea when it introduced Thursday night college football games years ago. The idea was to entice two universities (who had nearly zero chance of playing on Saturday’s national telecasts) to play a nationally televised game on a Thursday night. How about an evenly matched college football game between teams such as Western Kentucky vs. UL-Monroe or perhaps Toledo against Western Michigan. Maybe a Thursday night game between Hawaii and Wyoming, right?
It worked well enough that ESPN gradually phased out the little guys (and banished them to the internet on ESPN3) and started matching-up more prominent schools on both Thursday AND Friday nights during the fall. Teams hungry to grab a bigger payday and some national television exposure for recruiting purposes have (in some cases) willingly moved their games from the traditional fan-friendly Saturday game days to these end-of-workweek time slots.
Leave it to the NFL to say, “Me, too!” in an blatant attempt to sell more commercial advertising and (so they hoped) build some new fan interest for teams who rarely see the national spotlight on Sunday afternoons/evenings or Monday nights. Tonight’s lovely Thursday night NFL match-up features the St. Louis Rams of Los Angeles versus the Colin Kaepernick-less San Francisco 49ers. Frisco has faded for several years, and the Rams have struggled without having a true home stadium (leaving the fans in St. Louis for an ancient, usually half-empty L.A. Coliseum which opened over 90 years ago in 1923).
The marketing geniuses of the NFL somehow believed that fans like you and I would actually WANT to watch a game featuring two of the weaker professional football teams on Thursday nights. Remember last week’s epic Houston Texans at Cincinnati Bengals match-up? Neither do I.
For the NFL’s players, playing another football game after just three days of rest is incredibly difficult. Your body aches from all of the hits absorbed or dished-out on Sunday. Also, each team gets virtually no time to study the upcoming Thursday night opponent as the traditional week of preparation is compressed by nearly 50%. The players, already sporting plenty of aches and pains encountered on Sunday, may be increasing the odds of injury by not getting enough rest and recuperation time from last weekend’s game.
It must generate terrific TV ratings for the NFL, right? Wrong. Compared to an average Sunday NFL telecast (viewed by +/- 15 million viewers), the Thursday night Houston/Cincinnati snoozer had 8.8 million viewers. The NFL, though, realizes that those same 8+ million viewers still represents a high enough number to win the night (and grab valuable national advertisers) as the 200+ other cable television channels fragment the market and have individual viewership in much lower numbers.
Is the NFL featuring quality opponents most weeks to warrant fans watching Thursday night games on television? No.
Do the NFL’s fans like it? Based on the television ratings vs. any Sunday, the answer is “No“.
Is it causing physical hardships for the football players to suit-up on only 3 days of rest? Yes.
Is it causing a hardship on fans of the home team to play a game during a work night? Yes.
Should the NFL’s Thursday night experiment be ended for the betterment of the league, the health of its players, and in respect for the local fans? ABSOLUTELY! Somebody cue the Carly Simon music!