Football (North America: NFL, CFL, Arena Football, minor leagues)

[Big John]

There will be pushback, no doubt. An odd number of games is just no good, not to mention you could no longer finish with a .500 record. If we have to have more games, I would much rather skip straight to 18 games.

To be picky, a tie is still possible and a team could finish 8-8-1 for a .500 record. 

My problem is that one team could he home for 9 games and another have 9 road games.

[Alps]

I'm not seeing why it's so difficult to play 17 games instead of 16. If all 32 teams play for 17 weeks, they will have all played 17 games. An odd number of games is not difficult. An odd number of TEAMS is.

[US 89]

I'm not seeing why it's so difficult to play 17 games instead of 16. If all 32 teams play for 17 weeks, they will have all played 17 games. An odd number of games is not difficult. An odd number of TEAMS is.

Everybody plays the same number of games, but with an odd number you'll get an unbalanced home:away ratio that is going to vary between teams. This is fixable if the league can coordinate such that each team plays exactly one game at a neutral site, but that seems difficult to schedule.

I don't see why the possibility of having a .500 record matters.

[Beltway]

I'm not seeing why it's so difficult to play 17 games instead of 16. If all 32 teams play for 17 weeks, they will have all played 17 games. An odd number of games is not difficult. An odd number of TEAMS is.

Everybody plays the same number of games, but with an odd number you'll get an unbalanced home:away ratio that is going to vary between teams. This is fixable if the league can coordinate such that each team plays exactly one game at a neutral site, but that seems difficult to schedule.
I don't see why the possibility of having a .500 record matters.

Alternating years for each team, 9 home games one year and then 8 home games the following year.

[webny99]

I'm not seeing why it's so difficult to play 17 games instead of 16. If all 32 teams play for 17 weeks, they will have all played 17 games. An odd number of games is not difficult. An odd number of TEAMS is.

Everybody plays the same number of games, but with an odd number you'll get an unbalanced home:away ratio that is going to vary between teams. This is fixable if the league can coordinate such that each team plays exactly one game at a neutral site, but that seems difficult to schedule.
I don't see why the possibility of having a .500 record matters.

Alternating years for each team, 9 home games one year and then 8 home games the following year.

According to the Around the NFL podcast it will be an AFC-NFC rotation, so yes.

I'm actually surprised that, on a forum with as many technical minds as this one, no one cares about an odd number of games. It just seems wrong.

[jakeroot]

I'm actually surprised that, on a forum with as many technical minds as this one, no one cares about an odd number of games. It just seems wrong.

Feel free to expand on why. If there's a technical reason why it should be a problem, I'm sure you'll get plenty to agree with you. Just "seeming" wrong doesn't necessarily matter a ton.

[CtrlAltDel]

I'm actually surprised that, on a forum with as many technical minds as this one, no one cares about an odd number of games. It just seems wrong.

Feel free to expand on why. If there's a technical reason why it should be a problem, I'm sure you'll get plenty to agree with you. Just "seeming" wrong doesn't necessarily matter a ton.

I'm pretty sure the reason is that home-field advantage can skew the results. Given that the advantage is second highest (at 58%) in the NFL of the four major sports in the US, and given the small number of games played in a season, the outcome of such unbalance cannot be fair.

[Alps]

I'm actually surprised that, on a forum with as many technical minds as this one, no one cares about an odd number of games. It just seems wrong.

Feel free to expand on why. If there's a technical reason why it should be a problem, I'm sure you'll get plenty to agree with you. Just "seeming" wrong doesn't necessarily matter a ton.

I'm pretty sure the reason is that home-field advantage can skew the results. Given that the advantage is second highest (at 58%) in the NFL of the four major sports in the US, and given the small number of games played in a season, the outcome of such unbalance cannot be fair.

Okay, but if the entire NFC gets the advantage one year and the entire AFC gets the advantage the next year, it won't matter.

[NWI_Irish96]

I'm actually surprised that, on a forum with as many technical minds as this one, no one cares about an odd number of games. It just seems wrong.

Feel free to expand on why. If there's a technical reason why it should be a problem, I'm sure you'll get plenty to agree with you. Just "seeming" wrong doesn't necessarily matter a ton.

I'm pretty sure the reason is that home-field advantage can skew the results. Given that the advantage is second highest (at 58%) in the NFL of the four major sports in the US, and given the small number of games played in a season, the outcome of such unbalance cannot be fair.

Okay, but if the entire NFC gets the advantage one year and the entire AFC gets the advantage the next year, it won't matter.

That would work, but I think the plan is to have each team play one neutral site game (London, Mexico City, college stadiums, etc)

[Beltway]

That would work, but I think the plan is to have each team play one neutral site game (London, Mexico City, college stadiums, etc)

One game every week at a neutral site? 

Given that few college stadiums would be large enough, wouldn't that be difficult to arrange?

[1995hoo]

The idea of an odd number of games doesn't bother me all that much because I remember the days when college football had an 11-game season. Plus the NHL currently uses an unbalanced in-division schedule–you play some in-division opponents five times while you play others four. That doesn't mean I think it's ideal. I just don't find it as bothersome as webny99 does.

[NWI_Irish96]

That would work, but I think the plan is to have each team play one neutral site game (London, Mexico City, college stadiums, etc)

One game every week at a neutral site? 

Given that few college stadiums would be large enough, wouldn't that be difficult to arrange?

If every team plays one neutral site game, that's 16 in total.  If they keep doing the 4 per year in London and 1 per year in Mexico City, that only leaves 11 more needed.  There are easily 11 other stadiums that could host games.  Lots of pretty big college stadiums.

[jeffandnicole]

From a season-ticket member approach, it's a pain in the ass.  Currently for the Eagles, I'll be paying $950/seat this year (and I have the cheapest seats in the stadium - upper level endzone).  That's up $5/game from last year, and averages out to $95 per seat for 10 games: 2 pre-season games and 8 regular season games (yes, they make you purchase the preseason games).  The price they allocate to each game varies: On paper it may be $47.50 for the 2 pre-season games, $95 for 3 regular season games against opponents that don't attract much fan attention, then 5 games for $114 against opponents that fans care about more.  These are just examples; In the end it's relatively irrelevant - I'm paying $950 regardless. 

Most of the stadium is season ticket holders; For the few available single-game tickets that can be purchased, the individual cost matters a bit more.

So in years where the NFC plays 9 home regular season games, they will probably play 1 home pre-season game.  How does that affect the overall cost of tickets?  Will there be a price adjustment causing me to pay more in seasons where there's 9 regular season home games?  Will that be offset in seasons where there's only 8 regular season home games?   Honestly, from both a season ticket holder perspective, and from a team's front office needing/trying to convince the fans they're not ripping them off, this is gonna be a pain to work thru.

I'm not seeing why it's so difficult to play 17 games instead of 16. If all 32 teams play for 17 weeks, they will have all played 17 games. An odd number of games is not difficult. An odd number of TEAMS is.

For a few years this was the case.  Since each team had a bye week anyway it wasn't that much of an issue.  The biggest problem - the teams that had a bye week either on Week 1 or Week 17 of the season had to play 16 game in 16 weeks.  Obviously those teams with byes in Weeks 2 and 16 had it only marginally better, playing 15 games in a row.  The current system has worked out about as well as possible: No byes in weeks 1 - 3 and 13 - 17. 

That would work, but I think the plan is to have each team play one neutral site game (London, Mexico City, college stadiums, etc)

One game every week at a neutral site? 

Given that few college stadiums would be large enough, wouldn't that be difficult to arrange?

There's about 18 college football stadiums with seating for more than 80,000.  Of the 32 NFL teams, 27 have seating for fewer than 80,000.  So that won't be much of a problem.  However, being a 'neutral site' would be: Many of these stadiums are in or very close to cities that already host an NFL team, so if that cities' team is playing at that so-called 'neutral site', it's still pretty much a home game for them.  And for true neutral-site locations: You're not going to find many people wanting to travel to a far-away city to watch their team play a neutral site game.  You may have Penn State open to a Steelers/Eagles game (which won't work because it's AFC-NFC), or Alabama's Crimson Tide open for a Saints-Falcons matchup, but overall they are limited options.

[NWI_Irish96]

That would work, but I think the plan is to have each team play one neutral site game (London, Mexico City, college stadiums, etc)

One game every week at a neutral site? 

Given that few college stadiums would be large enough, wouldn't that be difficult to arrange?

There's about 18 college football stadiums with seating for more than 80,000.  Of the 32 NFL teams, 27 have seating for fewer than 80,000.  So that won't be much of a problem.  However, being a 'neutral site' would be: Many of these stadiums are in or very close to cities that already host an NFL team, so if that cities' team is playing at that so-called 'neutral site', it's still pretty much a home game for them.  And for true neutral-site locations: You're not going to find many people wanting to travel to a far-away city to watch their team play a neutral site game.  You may have Penn State open to a Steelers/Eagles game (which won't work because it's AFC-NFC), or Alabama's Crimson Tide open for a Saints-Falcons matchup, but overall they are limited options.

What we don't know yet is who the 17th opponent will be for each team.  Right now, the schedule consists of home-and-home with division opponents (6 games), playing an entire other division in each conference (8 games) and the other two conference teams that finished in the same position in their division (2 games). 

From a competitive balance standpoint, the best thing is to make that 17th game an interconference game against a team that finished in the same position in their division.  To use the 2019 standings as an example of a hypothetical 2020 schedule, the Bears would play either the Jets, Browns or Raiders (already playing the Colts as they are playing the AFC South).  The Jets and Raiders would be problematic in terms of finding someplace that isn't too close to either team but close enough to draw fans. 

The other option is to have a "permanent" interconference rivalry that is geographically based, so you can use neutral sites that are fairly close to both teams.  Of course this is problematic from a competitive balance standpoint if one team has to play the Chiefs every year and someone else gets to play the Jets every year, so there's no perfect solution.

[Beltway]

Seems like it would be a lot simpler to go from 16 games to 18 games, if they want to increase the number of games.

[SP Cook]

IMHO:

- Do you know anyone who has ever said either, "gosh, the 16 games really did not tell me who was best, I wish they played 17"  or "gosh, the playoffs are illegitimate, because only 12/32nds of the teams make it, I wish more did, I really want to see an at or near .500 team in the playoffs all the time."  ?  I haven't.

- Labor Day has been tried by the NFL.  It just doesn't work.  People are traveling, this hurts the live gate, and it hurts the TV ratings.   Thus, we are probably talking about going deep into February, so that the President's Day holiday is the day after the Super Bowl.  This has been the NFL's goal for 20 years.  Well and fine, but that means playing playoff games, outdoors, in the dead of winter.  Dumb and probably dangerous.

- The idea of "neutral site"  games as the 17th game will wear out.  There are just two real possibilities.  Foreign, and college.  As to college, it might be nice, for a few years, but after a while the "newness"  will wear of.   As to the foreign games, London.  Then what?  Mexico City (average family income, less than $900/month), or some other third world country?  Toronto?  Somewhere else in the GWN?  They already have their own league and Buffalo is de facto Toronto's team anyway.  Mainland Europe?  Coronavirusland?  Australia?  18 hours one-way.  Japan?  Nearly the same. 

Just be happy being the only sport that really only Americans get, and the only one that leaves people wanting a little more.

[jakeroot]

Would it be that difficult to locate 17 international venues? Mexico, Canada, Australia, the UK, Ireland, Germany?

I don't know how many neutral games would be required for the entire season to keep each team from playing too many home or away games, but I don't think it would be impossible to coordinate. Plus, more international games improves viewership, assuming the games don't air at 3am.

Australia?  18 hours one-way.  Japan?  Nearly the same.

Long flights (only 15 hours from LAX), but both countries have a long history of gridiron sports, with incomes to pack a stadium. Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka...lots of options right there. In Europe, there's plenty of other options beyond London. The NFL is making a ratings comeback; more international exposure would do the league good, and the players would get to visit (briefly, yes) some pretty cool places.

[Big John]

Seems like it would be a lot simpler to go from 16 games to 18 games, if they want to increase the number of games.

The players union is adamant against an 18-game season.

[bing101]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/xfl/2020/03/05/coronavirus-stadium-employee-xfl-game-seattle-tests-positive/4970808002/


An Update now a stadium employee in Seattle who was at a XFL Game has been tested positive for COVID-19.

[Big John]

XFL has suspended play indefinably

[1995hoo]

XFL has suspended play indefinably

Which will likely hurt that league more than just about any other one. Too bad. While I wasn't optimistic it would ever grow into anything big, I found it interesting to watch and I was hoping to get down to Audi Field for a game because it's a nice little stadium.

[LM117]

Tom Brady is leaving the Patriots.

https://www.patriots.com/news/tom-brady-announces-he-s-leaving-patriots

https://www.patriots.com/news/statements-from-robert-kraft-and-bill-belichick-on-qb-tom-brady

[webny99]

Didn't think it would happen, but wow. Nowhere does that feel more surreal than right here in Western New York.

[Alps]

The Colts land Philip Rivers, just one lifelong franchise QB changing hands right now.

[nexus73]

Mariota to the Raiders took place.  He is going to back up Carr.  If that is the case, I am sorry he did not go to Seattle, where he is a plug and play replacement for Wilson.  So long as Wilson stays upright, he can play and take the beating while letting the former Duck rest and recuperate.  The backup is only one play away from being the starter.  You need a very good one just like you need a very good insurance policy when you have something worth protecting.

Rick