Tue Apr 28, 2009 10:30 am EDT
The 2009 Twitter draft, and moving next year's draft to Thursday
Twenty
years from now, I think we might be looking back at the NFL draft of 2009 and
calling it "The Twitter Draft," as it's the first year where Twitter
played a significant role in the actual draft process.
Roger Goodell was Twittering, Rich Eisen was sharing some good information via Twitter, Jamie Dukes was Twittering, the Jets Twitter'd the news about the Sanchez trade before Roger Goodell announced it, Chase Daniel got in a Twitter fight with a radio station, the Patriots announced the Ellis Hobbs trade on Twitter, Shawne Merriman voiced his pleasure about Larry English via Twitter, and I'm sure I'm missing a ton of other things. Someday, maybe I'll have a Twitter account of my own.
Anyway, the Twitter draft continues, with the following Twitter this morning from NFL PR guy Brian McCarthy:
We're thinking of taking #nfldraft primetime. 1st rd thurs, 2-3 rds Fri nite, 4-7 Sat. Good/bad idea? What do u think?
I say bad idea, Mr. McCarthy, although, I admit, when I think about the reasons why, they're entirely selfish. I like "The Office" on Thursday nights. I like "30 Rock." I think "Southland" has potential. I'd rather not have to choose between them and the NFL draft when things already work out pretty well for me on Saturday, you know?
What else am I going to do on Saturday, go outside? Experience sunshine? See if my skin can turn a color other than a sickly pasty white? No thank you. I am a blogger, sir.
I think what we have here is a classic case of "If it's not broke, don't fix it." Saturday's good. It works well. Friends can gather and watch the draft together on Saturday. They can make a day of it. They can have nachos and bet ridiculous amount of money on draft picks. When the Kiper machine was built, it was optimized for Saturday performance. I don't understand it, but it's just the way the Kiper machine was engineered.
If you have it on Thursday night – and I'm selflessly thinking about others here – there's no way you're getting that thing done before midnight, and everyone's going to whine about how they have to get up and work the next day. You already do that to people about 45 other times in a given year, between unnecessarily late Sunday night games, Monday night games, Thursday night games, playoff games and the Super Bowl.
Saturday works. My vote is cast against Thursday.
Shutdown Corner
MJD
Shutdown Corner is an NFL blog edited by Matthew J. Darnell. Email him, and follow him on Twitter.
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14 Comments
1 - 14 of 14
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I just can't see how "grown ups" don't realize twitter is for 9 year old girls.
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The draft is WAY, WAY too long. They need to spread it out more if they want to put it all on TV.
They should move the 1st round to Friday night, have the 2nd-4th rounds on Saturday, and 5th-7th on Sunday.
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Even if every single team took the absolute maximum (and they don't) then you're still looking at a 5 hour draft and get done pretty much right after midnight... but only for eastern time. On the west coast its only 9pm... If the late night is your main concern, your argument doesn't hold water.
Now the "keep it on a weekend" argument sounds more logical at first glance. But if that's so critical go to Fri-Sat-Sun instead.
This can be made to work. And while the "true fans" are supposedly going to watch the whole thing, the point is not to sell to those people. They're already addicted. The point is to expand the fan-base, and you do that by making the "important" part (to a newbie) easily accessible on Thu or Fri night TV.
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What's with the NFL and wanting to pick crap days for big events? You *might* get more viewers in an hours span of time, but overall, less people will watch. Of course, a Thursday brings in bigger bucks in terms of how much commercials pay for the spots. Lose some fans. but make more money.
I'm not a big fan of the draft, it means very little to me as I'm not very knowledgeable in the college games. I do realize it's importance to a lot of people though. I just want them to make "Superbowl Saturday." Seriously, it's hurting the economy to hold it on Sundays because so many people skip work the next day.
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1. What time to start it? West Coasters get out of work at 8pm eastern. So first pick at 8:30?
2. With all the trading the second round is nearly as important as the first. So you have to show 2 rounds to make it worth watching.
3. So you have everyone buzzing at work on Friday now? DO they care as much on Monday?
The NFL is built around weekend play and Monday morning QBs and GMs. Don't mess with that formula. If anything I liked best when the draft started earlier on Sat.. It made a day of it. Now it's 2days with day 2 not being a very big deal.
Monday however is HUGE as fans talk all day about the possibilities and regrets. Forget messing with the formula. It's hard enough to watch football with the wife around. She's not going to want to watch the draft on a Thursday night and miss Grey's Anatomy, The Office, CSI or some other supershow. Know your roll.
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7pm eastern is:
6pm Central, Has anyone see Chicago traffic? Those guys get home close to 6:30 when they leave at 5:30.
5pm Mountain, True there are few teams in the mountain time zone but still could you see how ticked off Denver fans would be not to see Knowshon getting picked? Denver owns the mountain time zone and now that AZ is getting better you need to be considerate.
4pm Pacific. San Diego, San Francisco, Oakland, Seattle you plan to leave them out in the dark? If this draft started at 7pmeastern time SF, Oakland and Seattle's picks are off the board before anyone leaves work. Let's not forget that LA and SF are the 2ndand 3rd largest markets in the US.
7pm = DUMB
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someone please get a life
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1 - 14 of 14