NFL and NASCAR

Put the damn yellow flag away!

I am always amazed at how a completely successful strategy and marketing plan can be blown up by suits in the room that cannot stop tinkering, despite overwhelming success. NASCAR and the NFL were at the Mt. Everest of success and popularity a few years ago and managed to do the impossible: Attract women fans to the sport and capitalize on the stardom of the players. The NFL had “aw shucks” Papa John Manning on every commercial and he was hosting Saturday night live and then had his evil nemesis Tom Brady, who worked for the Death Star known as the Patriots, to foil his storybook ending time and again.   Likewise NASCAR had pretty boys Jimmy Johnson and Dale Earnhardt running laps around the evil Busch brothers and Tony Stewart and women loved it.   My wife was actually sitting down to watch races with me and football games on Sunday. That is not a misprint. My wife would actually sit down with me on Sundays as I would flip from race to football every commercial. I will admit it, this period may have been the happiest I have ever been in my 27 years of marriage. Drinking beer, eating sausage and peppers over pasta, and my bride asking me to switch back to the race again….I had reached the Kama Sutra. The pinnacle of marital bliss was within my grasp, if I could only convince her to watch the game and the race while wearing a Hooters outfit or a bikini… I was so close, yet sadly, so far away. NASCAR and the NFL took what didn’t need fixing, and managed to break it. Both sports are scrambling now to figure out a way to stop the bleeding that was self inflicted and quite frankly, against every marketing norm ever known to mankind. Let’s take a look at NASCAR and the NFL.

NASCAR: The dramatic decline from trending sport on the cusp of replacing baseball as 3^rd most popular sport, to being regulated to the backyards of Alabama and North Carolina began in 2008. Leaders of NASCAR decided that good looking guys from the Hendricks racing team were bad for the sport, so they began messing with rules up and down the sport. They restricted the cars, made everyone drive the same exact car and speed, and put in caution after caution. They even put in competition cautions so a dominant driver would have to give up a 3/4 of a lap lead and restart again with the rest of the lame ducks he blew by for the last hour. The list of winners at Daytona for the two races they host each year includes such glorious names like Aric Almirola, Erick Jones, and Chase Elliot.  Last we hear Almirola signed with the Dolphins as a receiver but we can neither confirm nor deny this. In each win, 42 cars were all going the same speed and a massive crash (including a track fire) have taken racing and turned it into caution lap after caution lap. The Races take forever, the ticket prices are through the roof and the broadcasts are unbearable to watch. PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO WATCH YELLOW FLAGS! Ratings and attendance have plummeted and the networks are going to be renegotiating the contracts with a deep discount, but NASCAR keeps adding more and more rules to stop the action and can’t figure out why people stopped watching? Some races now are done in stages so you race 50 out of 200 laps and then start over again. Who in the world thought this would help the competitive flow? It’s a 400 mile race not a basketball game with 4 quarters. The whole idea of racing was to make adjustments to the car, win off of pit row, or drive more aggressively and take a chance on gas mileage. Instead, we get more yellow flags. Yawn. Why have three or four drives dulling for laps when they can just throw a yellow caution and fans can watch drivers go 35 MPH for 10 laps…How many caution laps does it really take to pick up a cup or a piece of a car?

NFL: The NFL is so similar to NASCAR, in terms of making too many rules to slow the game. They managed to take a fast paced game and slowed it down with replay, reviews, rules and more that make it at times unwatchable.   Opening night between Falcons and Eagles had 26 yellow flags called. A game that started at 8:30 ended after midnight because the NFL has decided that fans would rather see a bunch of zebras huddle for two minutes before Ed “check out my guns” Hochuli announces a false start. The referees have literally become the face of the NFL. They are constantly huddling, talking, nodding their head and finally moving the ball 5 yards for illegal formation. Touchdown celebrations for fans no longer exist because we have to endure 5 minutes of replays from every angle (including the international space station cam) before we finally get a ref to say “The ruling on the field stands”! The rules and refs have managed to deflate many fans enjoyment because there is always a rule, a flag or replay to consider. Just when you think you clinched a game with a big sack, you see the caution flag thrown like NASCAR and the drive is kept alive because they ruled it was too tough of a tackle. PEOPLE DO NOT WANT TO WATCH YELLOW FLAGS!  When you throw in a broadcast partner that believes 17 people in the studio, in the booth and on the ground to watch the Jets vs. Browns and you see why the ratings are on edge.   This weekend, ratings were up slightly but last Monday’s Seattle vs. Chicago was ranked as one of the lowest rated Monday night games in over a decade. This is alarming. Is it just me or does every single kickoff and punt return end with a yellow flag and a block in the back or holding call?

NASCAR and the NFL need to put away the yellow flags and let action occur and scale back the broadcast partners who are smothering both sports. Let the players and drivers do their thing and quite frankly, if the flags are put away, fans can stop complaining and whining and just enjoy the game.  Perhaps if they do this, my wife will once again join me in the living room and we can do some nude yoga while watching NASCAR from Bristol and the Tampa Bay Bucs play a game without any yellow flags to kill the mood.   I know I am asking a lot and it was a once in a lifetime moment but I am hopeful Superman will hear my prayers!

-BSB (John Busacca)