[CaptainCrunch]

Ok, so I was sitting there thinking about the fairweather fan thing in the FOI forum and it got me to thinking about professional sports as a whole.

We've seen a sharp decline not only in NFL attendance but also in ratings. the NBA is showing declines, the NHL I believe has dropped slightly as well. Baseball is pretty stagnant but we really only see attendance boosts during the playoffs. I was reading the news and they were talking about declines in live events.

Are we heading into a downward cycle in professional sports, or are we about to see a required change in how professional sports is marketed and viewed?

Ok, lets look at some theories

1) Sports as a whole has done too much to try to "Fix" its problem to appeal to the next generation of fans and its failed. The NHL has tried to get away from being a tough physical game, in their effort to increase scoring they've emphasized a almost more physically passive form of hockey. With the NFL, they tried to give too much of an offensive advantage, the same with the CFL and its newer receiver rules and as such you don't see engaged defenses. These are a couple of examples of sports trying to x-box their game, to make it appeal to the video game generation. But they're not buying tickets and at the same time that the younger generation isn't buying tickets the older generation is walking away from the game.

2) Fans don't relate to pro athletes anymore, whether its criminal conduct, or arrogant statements fro athletes, to the fact that the idea of the lunch bucket athlete is dead due to million dollar deals. Fans have to feel for the athlete and its tough to do. Instead at a certain point fans turn very quickly against athletes because of how much money they earn. That poster on the wall of a smiling Gordie Howe who played for a bonus of a team jacket is now replaced by a poster of a $12 million dollar a year athlete that doesn't orbit your world.

3) Sports is no longer a family enterprise. Remember when the whole family used to go to a hockey or football or baseball game. You'd sit there and eat popcorn while your dad got slowly drunk and talked about hockey in his day, before you got to the game you'd stop at your favorite family restaurant? You'd get to the game and be excited and pumped up. Now to take a family out to a game and dinner its probably going to cost you about $500.00 or more. Most families can't afford to do that more then a couple of times a year. So instead the vast majority of fans are sitting at home and watching it on a TV with 200 channels (we'll get to that later). There's no connection to live events anymore, a lot of fans don't know how a hockey game smells, or sounds or how the boards rattle. Because of that there's no connection with pro sports. Instead of being a serious obsession, its a once of twice a year event.

4) The advent of the digital age. Pro Sports is very quickly moving away from a attendance sport to a TV sport. Infographics populate the screen, get slow motion from every angle and broadcasters breaking everything down for us. We're not the same sports fans that we used to be. To add on to it, its usually part of your cable package anyways. Then the bigger problem is how many fans watch games end to end anymore. In the old days when you had 12 channels you would watch a whole game. Now if the score gets out of hand we get bored and turn the channel, or our favorite show comes on in a half an hour and the channel changes. Sports is not only competing with sports, but its competing with other forms of entertainment and I believe its losing.

5) The Stats generation. We now have fans that track stats and because of that they can watch the game less. The old argument at the water cooler used to be "Did you catch the game last night, Dunkenson sucked man", Now its, "that Dunkenson has a high Corsi, he's awesome". Do you need to watch Dunkenson play anymore?

6) The X-box generation, this is threatening to kill professional and amateur sports. Why go and watch Crosby play when you can play and be better then Crosby on your gaming machine. Why play the game and risk a concussion when you can be the starting quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers? Fans are becoming disconnected with watching sports because they are the sports.

So where does it go from here.

I'm convinced for example that the Flames and the NHL are on the wrong track. Instead of building a 19,000 seat stadium, build a 10,000 seat stadium with a maximum number of luxury suites and cater to the people that can afford to go to 20 or 40 games a year. Then wire the building for sound and internet and take games off of free cable and go to technology based split screen PPV where you can see the game in a small box and see infographics and highlights of games in the other box.

In other words, to save sports they need to go with the declining attendance and change the way that they push the game out. What's the difference between a fan getting a $15.00 ppv for the Flames in Calgary or in London England? Nothing. you could have a unlimited crowd size paying a lot less then attending the game and having the information that they want at their finger prints. The people that attend the games are the ones that can spend hundreds of dollars per game and be given a uncrowded luxury experience.

Imagine going to a game in a more intimate setting where your treated like the 1%'er you are, you don't sit in seats you sit at tables and get served fine food and whatever liquor you want. The parking is easier, you have a tablet in your table with all the stats and scores you want. Meanwhile the rich folks are living it up in the luxury booths. Its an intimate setting where you're more then likely to know the people around you as well. Meanwhile at 7:00 30,000 people sign in to their Flames live account and their TV lights up with the Flames game in its super quadruple HD clarity. You can see that Monahan has been on a hot streak and leads the league this week in 20 offensive categories and Johnny's shooting percentage has steadily increased over the year. During a break you order pizza on your screen and because its a ppv in partnership with Pizza 73 you get $5.00 off your order and a map comes on in the upper part of the screen that shows your pizza is on the way.

So lets say that you get 8000 people paying on average $400.00 to attend. that's $3.2 million dollars. you get another 25,000 subscribers at $19.00 each. $475,000. So in total you've bought in nearly 3.7 million dollars for a game or $151,000,000 a year in just attendance figures.

And you give everyone what they want.

Anyways just ranting for now.