[kodablah]

This is going to be one of many reasons there might be a lockout in 2020 when it's CBA renewal time. This is going to trickle down to the players. NFL can't continue charging exorbitant access fees which means they will have to request a serious reduction in the salary cap (the owners aren't going to be willing to eat these losses).

I think this is great thing as the economics of large sports salaries have been artificially inflated by surreptitiously charging end users for things they might not want. As the internet continues to alter the landscape around content choice, traditional providers are going to have no choice but to push back on the networks which will, in turn, push back on the leagues which will, in turn, push back on high sports salaries. I wouldn't expect any of the limited sets of providers to accept any more price hikes from the sports networks. Sports costs have to come back down to earth as consumption specializes. It already has or will happen with other forms of content too.

[brian-armstrong]

Given how traumatic the sport and related CTEs are, I wonder if falling salaries will spell the end of football

[kodablah]

I do not believe so as I believe the issues are orthogonal. The livelihood of the sport is primarily driven by consumption not production IMO. You lose eyeballs, you lose everything. You lose players, more will fill their place and while the quality may decline, it will not be noticeable since it applies evenly.

Everyone knows the NFL could reduce injuries even more, but not at the cost of eyeballs. In a purely capitalistic view, players are much more expendable/replaceable than viewers. As a side effect, players will have to accept the risk of being injured for less money than they are now. While a couple of high profile NFL players have retired due to CTE concerns, in general there are many humans willing to make that sacrifice for even a fraction of what players are paid today.

[exelius]

Let's say you take the NFL's revenue and it drops by 90% (as I think it will relatively quickly once "TV" ad rates start to come in line with online video -- oh yes, all these issues are related). So the salary range would have to shift to say, $2-3M a year for the top stars and about $200,000 for vets; with rookies making $50k-ish. Sure there would be endorsements, but it wouldn't be the ubiquitous stardom. You're just another Instagram influencer.

You do that, and you take the wind out of the sails of a sport quickly. You probably have a better chance of success playing fantasy football (you know, gambling) than you would getting rich as a football player.

The adpocalypse is happening right now. We've been warning of it for years. Brands are figuring out their campaigns on "traditional TV" don't return nearly as much as targeted campaigns on online video on a per-dollar basis. The bloodbath is just beginning.

[DamnYuppie]

I don't disagree with your assessment on the impact of a reduction in ad spend. Yet I don't agree that how much a player makes impacts the popularity of football. All you have to do is look at college football where the overwhelming majority of athletes are just getting a scholarship. Most fans support a jersey not the person in it.

[trowawee]

The highest levels of popularity and fan support in college football are mostly focused on high-level play - i.e. the schools in P5 conferences. Are there rabid fans at lower levels of play? Sure, but it decreases. Far fewer people are lining up to watch North Dakota State play than to watch even lower tier P5 schools like Iowa or Ole Miss, despite NDSU winning five championships in the last six years at the FCS level.

If the salary at the highest levels crashed dramatically, the pool of players at every level would shrink accordingly. We would probably see an effect similar to what happened to boxing: the best of the best would still be very good, but the rank-and-file that make up the rest of the sport would be so terrible that most people would lose interest and stop watching. I suspect that fan interest would hold through some level of decrease in overall skill level, but that there is some point where people will just stop watching because the quality of play is so bad (and because of the constantly growing evidence regarding the long-term health implications, which, going back to the boxing example, was another piece of what knocked boxing off its cultural pedestal).

[exelius]

I think interest in football is waning because the sport is a lot less fun to watch now that we know those bone-crushing hits actually leave guys debilitated for life. And not just in the long-term; Aaron Hernandez should be a wake-up call for the risks of CTE among active players. A broken leg from a sport is one thing, but widespread (something like 95% of former players show signs of CTE) traumatic brain injury is another.

It's just not right to encourage people to do that, and I think a lot of fans are choosing to watch something else.

Edit: Also, basketball has better economics and a more international fan base, so it's probably safe. Baseball is probably fucked too, at least in the current incarnation of MLB. But the NFL is definitely fucked.

[u801e]

> but widespread (something like 95% of former players show signs of CTE) traumatic brain injury is another.

Has the popularity of boxing been impacted by this issue?

[dragonwriter]

How much players make influence whether people aspire to be players at all; a tangible decline in quality of play will hurt the sport.

Also, if the funnel of advertising (and thus TV) money goes away, the visibility of the sport will drop, and visibility reinforces popularity.

[eru]

Those salary caps are really weird. In 'socialist' Europe, we have no cap on football players pay, and the sky doesn't come down.

[kodablah]

Neither does the US in sports like baseball. Nobody said salary caps are the problem, so it wouldn't be the cause of the sky falling. It's about the salary amount, not whether it's capped.

Salary caps are about how your society values parity in whichever sport it is applied to. Regardless of the salary cap argument, do expect this to affect soccer as well, though further into the future. Right now many of those salaries, bumps for league promotion, etc are based on similar revenue sharing based on TV deals. And as US soccer eyeballs have grown, US TV deals have just added dollars to the already existing and new TV deals in soccer. They are on the upswing at the moment (kinda), but as fans get fed up with these draconian viewership requirements they are going to have to fight for the same in-between viewers (i.e. ones that would watch, but don't have to at all costs) that US sports are vying for across new mediums.

I should clarify that it won't affect the top teams in these situations. Man U and Barca and what not will still be fine due to ancillary sales and their brand. Rather it will affect the vast majority of other teams. Some owners are willing to take a hit, but only so much and for so long (except the super rich ones for which their team is their play thing).

[eru]

> Salary caps are about how your society values parity in whichever sport it is applied to.

It's a bit more complicated than that. In Europe you also usually have a relegation system. If I remember right, leagues are usually closed in the US?

[Zarath]

I think the salary caps are for competitive parity, not for economic reasons. Don't watch European Football, but are the same teams good every year?

[eru]

Mostly similar teams, but surprising rises and declines do happen. The relegation system is a huge part of the fun for people watching, too. (So two good teams from second league make it into first every year in eg the German football system.)

Hoffenheim's football team is an interesting example (http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/football/european/hoffenh...). They did have a rich guy backing them, though; but still came out of basically nowhere into the Bundesliga in a few short years. Though still:

> “Obviously we are not spending money like the big clubs in Germany so we are really focusing on our youth development, on our academy. There is a big number of players like Niklas Sule [sold to Bayern Munich this summer for £18m], [Jeremy] Toljan, [Nadiem] Amiri, [Philipp] Ochs who all came from our Under-17s and Under-19s. That's what we want to keep on doing: develop our own guys, but also sign players for less money who increase their market value. This is how we are working.”