It’s really, really rare for an NFL owner to suggest he and his brethren accept less money for the good of the league.
So we at least have to take Baltimore Ravens owner Steve Bisciotti’s suggestion seriously.
Bisciotti said that the NFL has too many commercial breaks, and that’s what has been affecting NFL ratings.
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that nobody wants to see two minutes of commercials, come back, kick the ball and then go to a minute-and-a-half of commercials,” Bisciotti told the Ravens’ website. “I’ve thought that was absurd since I was 20 years old.”
Then Bisciotti answered the obvious follow-up question: If you cut down on commercials, doesn’t that mean less income for the NFL? Bisciotti acknowledged it would cut into the NFL’s bottom line, and he’s fine with that.
“We’ve got to figure that out,” Bisciotti told the Ravens’ site. “Again, if you change that, it could mean a reduction in income, but that’s going to hit the players more significantly than it’s going to hit the owners. I still don’t know any owner that’s in this business because of the money.
“Everything is on the table, and if we have to go to ABC and NBC and say that we’ve got to cut some commercials out and give some money back and half of that money doesn’t go into the player pool, maybe that’s what we’re going to have to do. But our expenses would be adjusted accordingly too. So, I’d like to see some things cleaned up.”
That Bisciotti twice in that answer referenced the players getting less money has to be analyzed. Is he pointing that out as some kind of negotiating ploy for somewhere down the line? The players get a certain amount of the revenue in the collective-bargaining agreement, and less advertising money means less money for them. It’s a little strange that he’s volunteering to take money out of their pockets. (Also, let’s chuckle at his “I still don’t know any owner that’s in this business because of the money” comment … the folks who are asked to spend tax money on stadiums for billionaires might disagree there, Steve.)
There are many reasons for the NFL’s decline in ratings. And some of the story is needless mania; the NFL still destroys every other sport when it comes to television ratings. The NFL couldn’t just keep adding to ratings that are significantly higher than any other sport. Those numbers had to come down at some point.
That doesn’t mean the NFL should not think about improving its product. It doesn’t seem like commercial breaks are ruining the sport, especially when fans still appear to enjoy four-and-a-half hour college football games. Just because Bisciotti has had a longstanding pet peeve about the timing of commercials around kickoff returns doesn’t mean fans are giving up the sport because of it.
There have been plenty of suggestions for how the NFL can improve its television ratings. Bisciotti thinks the fix is to reduce commercials. Everyone else in the NFL, who like their paychecks as is, might not agree.
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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