The 2019 World Series was dramatic affair between The Houston Astros and the Washington Nationals. Two large market teams with large fan bases and star players. The Nationals emerged victorious in a tight battle that lasted the full 7 games. Each game averaged 13.9 million televisions fans.
Like all major professional leagues, the National Football League (NFL) conducts an amateur draft where teams select players who either exhausted or relinquished their college eligibility. While the World Series is a classic American tradition first played in 1903, the NFL first held a draft in 1936 with the hope of achieving parity among league teams. Give this goal, season records from the previous year determines draft order so bad teams have the first chance at the best college players. The meek truly inherit the NFL draft.
The NFL conducts its televised draft over the course of three days with the critical first round comprising day one. And 11 million people watched the 2019 version of the first round. Yes, 11 million people watched executives sitting at tables in a convention center selecting personnel.
This little illustration hammers home the relative power of the league that owns a day of the week. While the NFL is not immune to issues, its most pressing problem remains spending all the money it makes. While the league is under no legal mandate to make its finances public, reasonable estimates have the 32 teams and their players sharing $15 billion annually. Not too shabby. Most of this is TV money as the major networks fight among themselves for a piece of football gold. And this is at least partially due to ho the game looks on the screen. The visual marriage is made in heaven.
So how does the gridiron behemoth address the COVID-19 pandemic. Well, the NFL operates from a position of strength at least compared to other leagues and sports. Still, a revenue void would challenge all parties from owners to players as costs are high. So the league is crafting contingency plans like everyone else. Every option from shortening the regular season to playing in empty stadiums is under the microscope. All plans include sequestering players and football operations personnel to insure they are not exposed to the virus. The league does enjoy greater flexibility than other sports since training camps would not start until July with the regular season starting early September.
Until then, the crisis has not stopped the NFL from remaining active and in the public eye with ongoing personnel acquisitions. The free agent season currently occupies the spotlight all other sports vacated with the media clamoring over every trade, signing, and contract details.
Oh and the draft starts Monday. While it will be a virtual, Zoom driven affair, you can bet it will be televised. You may not watch but rest assured millions will tune in to see who their favorite selects.
The NFL draft made so many people happy because so many people have been without sports for 6-7 weeks. I think it'll be interesting if and how the NFL will play football in the fall. Will they decide to not have fans at the games, empty stadiums, will they let the football players come watch the game but have each family at a distance? Luckily, football has a while until their season is here but, usually they would be practicing right now to get ready for the next season. I think it will for sure be interesting to see what happens and how people will react if Baseball, Football, and basketball all get cancelled. Or if there will be an…
We are living in such interesting times. It's kind of cool to think how the whole draft will be via Zoom in order to accommodate for the virus.
We are living in such interesting times. It's kind of cool to think how the whole draft will be via Zoom in order to accommodate for the virus.
Just like all of us the NFL and other major sports are dealing with this devastating pandemic. It will be very interesting to see how they handle decisions that need to be made with starting back up and how the public(fans) will react to those decisions.
I think the NFL is in the best shape in relation to all other major sports. The NBA was ended midseason and the MLB should be in regular season right now. Not to mention the NBA playoffs were set to start last week. Where the NFL currently stands is the best of all problems right now. They are set to have their next "in-person necessary" event in July for camps. The draft doesn't have to be in-person, but it is certainly different being virtual. I agree that this will obviously be a year no one will ever forget, but if I were players like Joe Burrow, or Jalen Hurts, I would be uncontrollably disgruntled by the current circumstances. Joe Burrow,…