TMQ: Football overload, make it stop!

There are plenty of football games on TV, don’t add more

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Some say the problem in this great country is the national debt or failing public schools or billionaire robber barons or Panama Canal tolls. Or maybe the problem is – not enough football on TV.

In 2020 the NFL expanded its playoff field, then in 2021 went from 16 to 17 regular season games. But still – and people don’t believe this! – there are more weekends without NFL games than with.

That’s in the process of changing. Commissioner Roger Goodell just told Bloomberg News the “logical step” is expansion to an 18-game regular season. This may happen soon.

An 18-game card (following one less exhibition contest) would be joined by a second bye week for each club. This would represent 20 weeks of the regular season football followed by followed by four weeks of playoffs, the runup week that precedes the big event, then that Super Bowl thing you might have heard about.

That Super Bowl thing would be moved to the Sunday before President’s Day – a week later than this year’s contest, and followed by a national holiday on Monday. Not only would the season be longer, an illusion would be created that a national holiday had been declared to celebrate the Super Bowl.

Twenty-six weeks of professional football: we’re a hop, skip and a jump from more weekends with the NFL than without.

The players’ union must agree to an 18 game format: presumably, in exchange for higher pay and benefits.

Image courtesy Freepix.

There’s not enough college football either.

A generation ago, a D1 program played 11 or 12 games. Now for most it’s 14.

The playoff structure for big-college ball just expanded from four schools playing a total of three contests to 12 playing a total of 11 games. The D1 playoff field may expand again – ESPN is throwing money.

The Ivy League, which since 1954 capped football seasons at 10 games, just dropped that restriction. Next autumn up to 14 games is possible for Cornell or Yale, depending on how an Ivy does in the D1AA postseason bracket.

The total of high school football games has skyrocketed in most states too. Details are here.

With scripted primetime television in deep decline, only live sports still excites viewers. The networks (over the air and cable) are dangling major dineros for live sports, and football is The King of Sports.