It’s Super Bowl week. Which means for a lot of people, this is the one week a year they pay attention to football, even if they haven’t watched all season. That’s kind of the American ritual, kind of like how people vote in Presidential elections but ignore politics for the four years prior.
For the NFL and its 32 teams, the Super Bowl is just one game at the end of a marathon, a race that began with at least three preseason games, followed by 17 regular season ones. And for the two finalists, it’s two or three playoff games, depending on where you finish. The two teams playing in this year’s Super Bowl, New England and Seattle, have already played 23 and 22 games each, respectively. That’s what led us to this Sunday, which for many will be the single football game they’ve watched all season – or at least attended a party where the games are on.
That total number of games, or at least the ratio, might be about to change, depending on who you listen to. That’s because once again, the League is talking about moving from 17 to 18 regular season games, which would add more inventory for media sales and distribution across the growing number of media and tech platforms that are in the game of live sports TV. New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft recently discussed an 18th game as a foregone conclusion, also suggesting they’d reduce the preseason by one, kind of zero summing it out, although not really. Kraft’s comments largely reflected those of League Commissioner Roger Goodell just a couple of years ago, especially after they moved from a clean 16 game slate to the current awkward 17 game schedule. Odd numbers are great for voting bodies, but less harmonic for League schedules, where the mind prefers to operate in even symmetry.
What also would come with an additional regular season game, at least according to players and union reps, is another chance for serious injury, the kind of stuff that ends seasons and shortens careers. The current players association head David White said as it currently stands, players have no appetite for an 18th game. And even if they do, that would only come after negotiations and consideration of all factors, which we assume basically means money. Even commissioner Goodell this week said there hasn’t been any formal conversations about it, so nothing is a given. Certainly Roger is smart enough not to feed a controversial side story during the League’s holy week. They’ll be plenty of time for that in the off-season.
There’s nothing especially new about a professional sports league looking to generate more revenue by creating more product. Whether that’s a longer season, more teams, or bigger and better arenas, the NFL is just a business trying to maximize inventory and profit. And right now, the confluence of the League’s popularity, cash coming from new places like Amazon, and a relative detente around the risks of game make it the idea moment for capitalism to do what it does best. Which is why I do believe, inevitably, we will see an 18 game schedule. Not because the evil owners will impose their will on their hapless labor force, but because both sides will be unable to refuse the allure of even more cash.
But make no mistake, just because we’ll get 18 games and watch them doesn’t mean it’s a good idea. Take the injury risk off the table. Even if it were safe, that doesn’t mean that 18 games is somehow better than 17. In fact, anyone who endures the slog of an 82 game NBA regular season would have agree that a bit more scarcity of product could go a long way towards quality control. And at some point, there’s going to be a retraction of market interest, when the public just isn’t quite as interested as they once were. It’s going to be much harder to keep the business running smoothly with 16 games than 18. If you don’t believe me, just ask any of the thousands of businesses or heck, colleges that grew too much during good years and now have to figure out how to right size. I’m not saying the NFL is going to lay off half its staff in five years. I’m just saying that restraint can be an amazing business tactic.
I don’t think that’s what we’ll get here. What we’ll likely get is 18 games and probably more played overseas to grow markets. And an even longer trek to get to the Super Bowl.
Keith Strudler is the Dean of the College of Communication and Media at Montclair State University. You can follow him at @KeithStrudler.
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