Is football dying?

397 Comments

As baseball news is at its offseason nadir, it’s time to take note of something everyone is noticing but no one is willing to discuss openly: professional football, which used to be America’s most popular sport, no longer has a hold on the nation’s consciousness.

Over the years, you have heard myriad explanations for football’s declining popularity. High-definition television making people less likely to go to stadiums. The increasing sophistication of video game consoles creating a more appealing form of home entertainment. People’s increasing love of Sunday marathons of “Top Gear” on BBC America. All are valid explanations. But they have not seemed to detract from America’s new favorite pastime: baseball.

Look no further than this past season’s playoffs. Sellouts in Boston, St. Louis, Detroit, Los Angeles. Everyone from the cop on the corner to the man on the street enjoyed the baseball playoffs and Fall Classic. It really brought our nation together.

But the NFL? Costs are skyrocketing, pricing out the common fan. Playoff teams struggle to sell tickets. When the league should be celebrating its moment in the spotlight it finds itself enmeshed in controversy. A mere five years ago no one would have predicted that baseball would trump football in a popularity (non)contest like it does now. But they probably should have.

And to be clear: football’s declining allure has nothing to do with costs, the prevalence of social issues in the discourse or even the natural ebb and flow of popular entertainment. It has to do with the sport itself. There’s too broad a canvass on which to paint needed progressive change in football. Literally. There’s too much space.

Including end zones, a football field is 120 yards long and 53 yards wide, giving it a playing-surface area of 8,242,560 square inches. Eight million-plus square inches is far too much space for its participants to cover, both literally and thematically. It’s strategic schemes are simultaneously far too broad and far too intricate, and thus there is far too much required of the fan to accommodate the sport’s advancements.

Baseball, on the other hand, has a relevant playing surface area of a mere 216 square inches. That’s the area of home plate. Yes, baseball fields are about the same overall size as football fields, but the field does not become relevant until someone hits one of the pitches thrown to home plate. The sport hinges on what takes place near those 216 square inches. There are only so many things an athlete can do when confined to such tight parameters. There are only four things, really: throw a strike or a ball and swing the bat or don’t. Fans can handle something as simple as that. The entire game’s perfection is confined to a reasonable area, clearly seen by the home viewer and the fan in the overflowing stands alike. Granted, this is an oversimplification of a long-lived sport like football, but it is a clear explanation for why football’s best days are behind it.

Is football dying? The playoff game ticket sales, the sport’s own natural evolutionary limitations and the history of similar sports say yes. It’s just a matter of how quickly. The rate of football’s demise can easily turn into something of a mathematical argument based on presumption and perspective (two things that do not mix well with numbers). The National Football League came about in 1920. The sport’s golden age – its teenage years, if you will – was the 1960s through, oh, let’s call it early 2013. So perhaps football hasn’t even reached its midlife crisis yet. And yes, football’s TV ratings for the upcoming playoffs may show the sport to be back in full swing.

Bt in the big scheme of things, fewer people are going to playoff games. Meanwhile, the Spring Training is a little less than a month and a half away, and new records for attendance will probably be set.

Evolution at work.

My thanks to Kyle Daugherty for inspiring the idea of this post and to the New York Times’ Andy Benoit — and many other silly doomsayers of baseball — for inspiring the structure.

Phillies’ ace Nola loses no-hitter in seventh, wins game 8-3 over Tigers

Eric Hartline-USA TODAY Sports
0 Comments

PHILADELPHIA – Aaron Nola took a no-hitter into the seventh inning and struck out 12, Trea Turner homered twice among his four hits to lead the Philadelphia Phillies to their third straight win, 8-3 over the Detroit Tigers on Monday night.

Nola (5-4) fanned 10 and had faced the minimum through six as he tried to pitch the Phillies’ first no-hitter since 2015. The ace right-hander ran into trouble in the seventh when two batters reached on a walk and a fielding error. Nola still had two outs when he hung an 0-2 breaking ball to Nick Maton and the former Phillie crushed one into right to make it a 5-3 game.

Maton’s bat-flip homer was the only hit allowed by Nola. He walked three over seven innings.

Seranthony Domínguez and Andrew Vasquez each tossed a scoreless inning out of the bullpen.

Nola walked Jake Marisnick with two outs in the third inning but the outfielder was out at first base on a caught stealing by catcher J.T. Realmuto. Nola walked Maton with one out in the fifth but the baserunner was erased after Eric Haase hit into an inning-ending double play.

Nola threw 68 of 108 pitches for strikes in front of 33,196 fans. Nola, who recorded two strikeouts on automatic strike three calls, has now pitched at least six innings in each of hit last 10 starts.

He improved to 83-66 in a career spent all with the Phillies since his debut in 2015. The right-handed ace is a free agent at the end of the season. Nola and the Phillies tabled contract talks in spring training, with no plans to resume until the offseason.

Nola’s no-no stalled, too.

There have been no no-hitters in the majors this season, the first since Major League Baseball introduced a pitch clock. There were a record nine in 2021 and four last year.

The Phillies returned home from a 4-6 road trip in search of some last season’s June success that squashed a miserable start and led them to the NL championship. So far, so good. The Phillies won the last two games in Washington and kept the wins coming at home. They scored one run in each of the first three innings on Turner’s RBI single, Nick Castellanos’ run-scoring double, and Turner’s solo shot in the third.

Bryce Harper added an RBI single in the fifth. Turner connected the same inning off Tigers starter Joey Wentz (1-6) for his seventh homer of the season and first multi-homer game with the Phillies.

Turner has slumped in the first season of an 11-year, $300 million deal. He hit just .143 on the road trip but now has three homers in his last two home games.

VETERAN MOVE

Tigers DH Miguel Cabrera, who has said he will retire at the end of the season, is the last active player who played at Veterans Stadium. The Phillies last played in their now-razed former stadium in 2003. He played six games at the Vet in 2003 with the Florida Marlins. The Phillies will honor Cabrera before Wednesday’s game.

TRAINER’S ROOM

Phillies: LHP José Alvarado (left elbow inflammation) is set to make a rehab appearance in Double-A Reading. … CF Cristian Pache (right meniscus tear) is “swinging and missing quite a bit,” according to manager Rob Thomson, in his minor league rehab games.

UP NEXT

The Phillies send RHP Taijuan Walker (4-3, 5.65 ERA) to the mound. The Tigers did not name a starter.