NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

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NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Fri Feb 02, 2018 11:11 am

TV ratings for the NFL were in full retreat this season, posting a nearly 10% decline in 2017, continuing a trend that started in 2015.

www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21960086/nf ... lar-season

However, within the same article, there is some evidence that the decline may not be as big as you would think:

Despite the drop in NFL ratings, Nielsen data shows that the 20 of the 30 highest-rated shows on television in 2017 were football games. Both NBC and ESPN had the most-watched shows every single week, in terms of audience and in all key male demographics, for Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football games this season.

Last year, many were attributing the ratings drop to the US POTUS election, but obviously that wasn't a factor this season. But wait! The POTUS called for a boycott of the NFL in response to the anthem protests, so maybe politics did influence this year's ratings decline.

My take is that although the NFL isn't in deep trouble yet, they are losing ground to some of the other sporting enterprises, like MLB and the NBA. They are already telling people not to be shocked if this year's SB ratings doesn't break records.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Largent80 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 11:54 am

I don't watch any other than Seahawk games, except very ocasiaonally. And this is from a person that used to watch as many as possible.

Why do I want to watch a festival of yellow flags and endless timeouts for replays that they get wrong? Think about that, they have video proof yet still get it wrong and they expect fans to be ok with it.?

Plus, they can't even define what a caught pass is anymore. Dude catches the ball...Is it a catch or not?.....Seems simple to ask but, a "football move" is now required. What in the?

It's not a product worth watching outside of your teams interest and yet they wonder why?

Guess what dillwads, I cancelled the extortionist DirecTV and their monopoly of Sunday Ticket because I am out of Seattle, but guess what, I will still get every Seahawk game for less than $50 for the season now that I have cut your cord.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby c_hawkbob » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:03 pm

RiverDog wrote:TV ratings for the NFL were in full retreat this season, posting a nearly 10% decline in 2017, continuing a trend that started in 2015.

http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/2196 ... lar-season

However, within the same article, there is some evidence that the decline may not be as big as you would think:

Despite the drop in NFL ratings, Nielsen data shows that the 20 of the 30 highest-rated shows on television in 2017 were football games. Both NBC and ESPN had the most-watched shows every single week, in terms of audience and in all key male demographics, for Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football games this season.

Last year, many were attributing the ratings drop to the US POTUS election, but obviously that wasn't a factor this season. But wait! The POTUS called for a boycott of the NFL in response to the anthem protests, so maybe politics did influence this year's ratings decline.

My take is that although the NFL isn't in deep trouble yet, they are losing ground to some of the other sporting enterprises, like MLB and the NBA. They are already telling people not to be shocked if this year's SB ratings doesn't break records.


Redzone is bigger than people realize. When the Seahawks game is not on that's all I watch. I think if you factor in streaming (I know it can be and is done, I do it when I travel and the Seahawks are not televised) and Redzone the numbers aren't much more than a nominal statistical variation.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby NorthHawk » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:42 pm

Largent80 wrote:I don't watch any other than Seahawk games, except very ocasiaonally. And this is from a person that used to watch as many as possible.

Why do I want to watch a festival of yellow flags and endless timeouts for replays that they get wrong? Think about that, they have video proof yet still get it wrong and they expect fans to be ok with it.?

Plus, they can't even define what a caught pass is anymore. Dude catches the ball...Is it a catch or not?.....Seems simple to ask but, a "football move" is now required. What in the?

It's not a product worth watching outside of your teams interest and yet they wonder why?

Guess what dillwads, I cancelled the extortionist DirecTV and their monopoly of Sunday Ticket because I am out of Seattle, but guess what, I will still get every Seahawk game for less than $50 for the season now that I have cut your cord.


They are going to review what constitutes a completed pass. Again.
Hopefully they simplify it instead of adding more conditions and such.

I watch a lot of the games and as many College games as I can as well.
It's just one of those things that's part of my life for 5 or so months.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Aseahawkfan » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:53 pm

Phones, pirating, and lots of other internet related factors are hurting more than politics in my opinion.We'll see in time. A lot of people are "cutting the cord" as it is put and finding alternative, cheaper ways to watch what they want to watch.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Largent80 » Fri Feb 02, 2018 12:58 pm

Direct TV is pirating since they own the rights to Sunday Ticket. So if you want that you need to subscribe to their ridiculous prices to watch a gazzion channels that you DONT watch.

Cutting the cord is what every single fan should do. It sends the message that your profits are less than my interest. In a mere few days, I have replaced an over $200 per month bill for 43 dollars and I have every single channel I had with DirecTV. Smoke that.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby FolkCrusader » Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:00 pm

One has to look at TV trends overall. The only demographic in which TV viewership is still rising is 65+. All other age groups are falling, some by as much as 15%. The NFL is still the most popular product on television by a long shot. It is just that less people are watching TV every year. My sons for example have not watched broadcast TV in years.

This past year I cancelled my DirectTV subscription. I went to a higher bandwidth internet service and use a combination of subscription services for programing. I didn't miss any football games I would have normally watched. Overall I saved over $100 a month and have similar service. Most of the guys in my neighborhood have done something similar. None of us count towards TV ratings anymore.

That said, I think there are also people that chose to watch less (or no) football due to crappy product, or bad officiating, or because they just can't stand to see someone have a different opinion then their own. I doubt that was a huge number though. Perhaps we'll need new football conferences. We could have the Leftist Football Conference and the Alt-Reich Football Conference. That would surely up the ratings ;)
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby NorthHawk » Fri Feb 02, 2018 1:57 pm

We could have the Leftist Football Conference and the Alt-Reich Football Conference. That would surely up the ratings ;)


They could start a whole new league with the fights in the stands!
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Fri Feb 02, 2018 2:44 pm

The problem with using the varying viewing platforms as the root cause is that MLB and the NBA, relative to the NFL, are doing much better, and they operate in the same environment as does the NFL. The only point I saw raised that was not common with other leagues was CBpb's noting that NFL Red Zone is not included in the ratings. That's an aspect that is not present in the NBA or MLB.

I do think that politics has had an effect in the decline, but it's not the only reason. The California teams (Raiders, Niners, Rams, and Chargers) are dragging much of the league down the drain.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby NorthHawk » Fri Feb 02, 2018 3:39 pm

I hadn't thought about the California teams.
With what they did to St. Louis (even though I hate the Rams), I hope Kroenke takes a bath on this move. It would be a little bit of justice from where I sit.

Edit:
And I think it's turned some fans off and a lot of them from those 3 cities although SD dithered about a new stadium, and Oakland didn't seem to care either until it was too late.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:56 pm

NorthHawk wrote:I hadn't thought about the California teams.
With what they did to St. Louis (even though I hate the Rams), I hope Kroenke takes a bath on this move. It would be a little bit of justice from where I sit.

Edit:
And I think it's turned some fans off and a lot of them from those 3 cities although SD dithered about a new stadium, and Oakland didn't seem to care either until it was too late.


Just my own informal survey. I made a Las Vegas trip last November, and on Sunday when everyone wears their favorite team colors, I saw just a couple of Niners jerseys, ONE Rams jersey, and no Chargers jerseys, despite that they were geographically closer to Vegas than any other NFL city except Phoenix (didn't see many Cards jerseys, either). However, I did see a number of Raiders jerseys, comparable to other non California teams like the Cowboys, Seahawks, Broncos, Chiefs, et al.

California is not an NFL hotbed.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Aseahawkfan » Fri Feb 02, 2018 9:47 pm

RiverDog wrote:The problem with using the varying viewing platforms as the root cause is that MLB and the NBA, relative to the NFL, are doing much better, and they operate in the same environment as does the NFL. The only point I saw raised that was not common with other leagues was CBpb's noting that NFL Red Zone is not included in the ratings. That's an aspect that is not present in the NBA or MLB.

I do think that politics has had an effect in the decline, but it's not the only reason. The California teams (Raiders, Niners, Rams, and Chargers) are dragging much of the league down the drain.


Is NBA or Baseball even close to the NFL in ratings? Both have so many games, it's hard to imagine any games but the playoffs crack top weekly ratings. I think the internet wouldn't affect them as much given the sheer number of games will always keep them low. Not to mention, do they have the same online options as football?
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Zorn76 » Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:15 am

More than the usual amount of garbage games league wide this year, in no small part to injuries (Rodgers, Watson, etc.)

Hard to believe the refs get worse (*cough* pt shaving *cough*) with each season, but it looks like a trend that will continue.
The NFL doesn't know what an actual catch is anymore, even when it's right in front of them *cough*.

The political garbage...easily the least enjoyable season I've watch in 40 yrs of being a fan. I really hope for less b.s. next season as much as I do for the Seahawks to do well. It's tiresome.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Sat Feb 03, 2018 9:33 am

Aseahawkfan wrote:Is NBA or Baseball even close to the NFL in ratings? Both have so many games, it's hard to imagine any games but the playoffs crack top weekly ratings. I think the internet wouldn't affect them as much given the sheer number of games will always keep them low. Not to mention, do they have the same online options as football?


How close MLB and the NBA are to the NFL in terms of the most watched programming wasn't the point. The point was that the NFL is experiencing a decline in ratings while the NBA and MLB are experiencing increases. It's a trend that started 3 years ago.

Part of the problem this season is that as whole, the traditional franchises didn't do so well, ie Cowboys, Raiders, Redskins, Giants, Bears, Packers, and Niners didn't make the playoffs. They were replaced by a number of small market teams that don't have nation wide fan bases, ie Minnesota, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Buffalo, and New Orleans. And of course, no one in LA gives a rusty puck about the Rams.

The other problem that we haven't talked about is that MLB and the NBA draw more of their players, and hence more of their fans, from foreign countries than does the NFL. Baseball and basketball is played virtually everywhere whereas football is almost exclusively an American/Canadian affair.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby NorthHawk » Sat Feb 03, 2018 10:27 am

Interesting comment about the big names not making the playoffs. Actually they didn't play very well all year and many fans are bandwagoners with in my experience the Cowboys fans being the worst. I've come across a lot of people in my life who don't watch if their team is playing bad but are insufferable when the do well. That crosses all sports, but with only 16 games in the season it might have a larger impact than other sports that play 5 to 10 times more regular season games.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Sat Feb 03, 2018 12:36 pm

NorthHawk wrote:Interesting comment about the big names not making the playoffs. Actually they didn't play very well all year and many fans are bandwagoners with in my experience the Cowboys fans being the worst. I've come across a lot of people in my life who don't watch if their team is playing bad but are insufferable when the do well. That crosses all sports, but with only 16 games in the season it might have a larger impact than other sports that play 5 to 10 times more regular season games.


I hear ya about Cowboy fans. They were pretty quiet this season.

I could also toss in Houston as a big market team that didn't do very well, especially in light of the fact that Houston fans were so fully engrossed in the World Series last fall. The Astros sucked the blood out of the NFL's Texans in September and October and by the time the series was over, 3 of the Texans star players (Watson, Watt, and Merculus) were on IR. A similar situation happened the year before with the Cubs dominating the sports scene in Chicago during the first two months. There was such a contrast between a MLB team that was doing very well vs. an NFL team that sucked.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Aseahawkfan » Sat Feb 03, 2018 4:59 pm

RiverDog wrote:How close MLB and the NBA are to the NFL in terms of the most watched programming wasn't the point. The point was that the NFL is experiencing a decline in ratings while the NBA and MLB are experiencing increases. It's a trend that started 3 years ago.


Irrelevant. NFL is the top dog. Upswing may just be standard ratings movement. MLB took a hit with the steroid scandal. They may be continuing their recovery.

Part of the problem this season is that as whole, the traditional franchises didn't do so well, ie Cowboys, Raiders, Redskins, Giants, Bears, Packers, and Niners didn't make the playoffs. They were replaced by a number of small market teams that don't have nation wide fan bases, ie Minnesota, Jacksonville, Tennessee, Buffalo, and New Orleans. And of course, no one in LA gives a rusty puck about the Rams.


NFL took hits from a variety of sources. Political drama. Concussion health concerns. Lots of pirating and alternate ways to watch football. They were already at an apex and this may be a cyclical downturn. The business doesn't have to be a problem for a downturn to occur. It's hard to keep growing year after year after year. Sometimes people burnout and take a break.

The other problem that we haven't talked about is that MLB and the NBA draw more of their players, and hence more of their fans, from foreign countries than does the NFL. Baseball and basketball is played virtually everywhere whereas football is almost exclusively an American/Canadian affair.


Are people in foreign countries a noticeable market for the NBA? How much revenue from foreign markets? That's obviously the only place our sports have to grow, but it doesn't seem like they will challenge soccer any time soon, any of them.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Sun Feb 04, 2018 3:49 am

Aseahawkfan wrote:Irrelevant. NFL is the top dog. Upswing may just be standard ratings movement. MLB took a hit with the steroid scandal. They may be continuing their recovery.


A nearly 10% drop in ratings that was preceded by an 8% drop in the previous year is irrelevant? I'm pretty sure that the execs at the NFL aren't thinking that way. Whatever the cause, whether it be politics, health concerns, changing viewing platforms, the struggles of franchises in big markets, or whatever, when you have a trend that has gotten steadily worse in each of the last 3 years, it's anything but irrelevant.

Are people in foreign countries a noticeable market for the NBA? How much revenue from foreign markets? That's obviously the only place our sports have to grow, but it doesn't seem like they will challenge soccer any time soon, any of them.


The point of the thread isn't so much about markets and profitability, at least as it relates to overseas. It's about fans and popularity as reflected by TV ratings. Obviously neither league is getting much revenue from overseas as their television contracts are all US based.

The ratings slide has to concern the NFL. They can't ignore or rationalize it.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Aseahawkfan » Sun Feb 04, 2018 5:18 am

RiverDog wrote:A nearly 10% drop in ratings that was preceded by an 8% drop in the previous year is irrelevant? I'm pretty sure that the execs at the NFL aren't thinking that way. Whatever the cause, whether it be politics, health concerns, changing viewing platforms, the struggles of franchises in big markets, or whatever, when you have a trend that has gotten steadily worse in each of the last 3 years, it's anything but irrelevant.


I'm sure it's not irrelevant to the owners. The ratings of the NBA or MLB are irrelevant because the NFL is still way ahead. They're still making a ton of money. The cap is still rising. How much did the ratings drop affect the bottom line? Doesn't appear it affected it much.

The point of the thread isn't so much about markets and profitability, at least as it relates to overseas. It's about fans and popularity as reflected by TV ratings. Obviously neither league is getting much revenue from overseas as their television contracts are all US based.

The ratings slide has to concern the NFL. They can't ignore or rationalize it.


Depends. If it is cyclical, then they can wait it out. If it is a continuing trend that affects the bottom line, then they must be concerned. When Ford experiences a huge downturn in sales or any other cyclical business such as certain types of movies or trends, then you wait until the next upswing. Not much you can do to reverse it, so you wait for the cycle to uptick, adjust your pricing model, and monitor.

Sometimes there isn't much you can do to reverse a business trend in something like entertainment because your product is saturated and has nowhere to grow. I even find myself burning out on watching football. The younger generation doesn't seem as interested. I see so many of them watching video game competitions over football. I wouldn't be surprised to see football die off not because of concussions or politics, but waning interest by the younger generation more interested in electronic entertainment and raised in a less physically active culture. Some far away point in the future may have football competitions between two video game players that attract more viewers.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Sun Feb 04, 2018 8:44 am

Aseahawkfan wrote:I'm sure it's not irrelevant to the owners. The ratings of the NBA or MLB are irrelevant because the NFL is still way ahead. They're still making a ton of money. The cap is still rising. How much did the ratings drop affect the bottom line? Doesn't appear it affected it much.


It's too early for a couple year decrease in ratings to affect the bottom line. TV contracts are signed for multiple years, so a two year drop in ratings is not going to affect how much income the league derives from TV. But if fewer viewers are watching, advertisers are not going to be willing to pay the same amount for commercials, so if the ratings slide continues, it's only a matter of time before it starts affecting the bottom line.

Depends. If it is cyclical, then they can wait it out. If it is a continuing trend that affects the bottom line, then they must be concerned. When Ford experiences a huge downturn in sales or any other cyclical business such as certain types of movies or trends, then you wait until the next upswing. Not much you can do to reverse it, so you wait for the cycle to uptick, adjust your pricing model, and monitor.


I disagree. There are ways to reverse business trends. The successful companies are the ones that detect trends early and get ahead of the game. A good example is Amazon. They anticipated the demand for for online shopping and invested heavily in it. Standing pat or simply waiting out trends isn't a good business model, which is a big reason why former retail giants like Sears and KMart are going out of business.

Sometimes there isn't much you can do to reverse a business trend in something like entertainment because your product is saturated and has nowhere to grow. I even find myself burning out on watching football. The younger generation doesn't seem as interested. I see so many of them watching video game competitions over football. I wouldn't be surprised to see football die off not because of concussions or politics, but waning interest by the younger generation more interested in electronic entertainment and raised in a less physically active culture. Some far away point in the future may have football competitions between two video game players that attract more viewers.


My dad always claimed that boxing killed the goose that laid the golden egg by over saturating the market with their TV broadcasts. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of paralells between the demise of boxing and what we could be seeing as the start of a demise with football.

Bottom line is that although I feel that we're decades away from football taking a back seat to any other sport in this country, I do think that it's peaked.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Aseahawkfan » Sun Feb 04, 2018 1:11 pm

RiverDog wrote:I disagree. There are ways to reverse business trends. The successful companies are the ones that detect trends early and get ahead of the game. A good example is Amazon. They anticipated the demand for for online shopping and invested heavily in it. Standing pat or simply waiting out trends isn't a good business model, which is a big reason why former retail giants like Sears and KMart are going out of business.


Amazon leveraged it's online book selling business into all types of merchandise. Amazon always was an online shopping business. It started as an online shopping business. It was never anything other than an online shopping business. So it did not reverse a trend, it started it. Amazon hopping on other businesses like cloud computing services, producing digital readers, creating digital assistants like Alexa, and buying Whole Foods is an example of leveraging its online shopping business into other types of businesses. That is not reversing a trend, that's expanding into other businesses that are similar and complementary to the core business.

Plenty of businesses succeed in cyclical businesses like car production, computer buying, Movie making, or phone buying that rely on planned obsolescence. The most successful companies know how to weather the cyclical downturns in their core business.

My dad always claimed that boxing killed the goose that laid the golden egg by over saturating the market with their TV broadcasts. As a matter of fact, there are a lot of paralells between the demise of boxing and what we could be seeing as the start of a demise with football.

Bottom line is that although I feel that we're decades away from football taking a back seat to any other sport in this country, I do think that it's peaked.


It probably is peaked. Most they can do is expand the number of games or find new markets as they are trying to do with the London and Mexico experiments. I think it will be very hard to expand American football. I think we discussed this before, but the expense of starting football teams is a first world luxury. All soccer requires is a ball and some open place to play be it a field or a back alley. Football requires additional equipment, a field, uprights for field goals, and other general equipment like a weight room and medical help to really do it well.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Oly » Sun Feb 04, 2018 1:41 pm

Aseahawkfan wrote:Are people in foreign countries a noticeable market for the NBA? How much revenue from foreign markets? That's obviously the only place our sports have to grow, but it doesn't seem like they will challenge soccer any time soon, any of them.


About 2.7% of the NBA's revenue is from China ($150m of the $5.5b total): http://blog.tutorming.com/expats/why-th ... owing-fast

I spent some time in China and I could tell just how much it's growing. I saw more NBA merch being worn than any other sport, including the EPL and La Liga combined. The NBA started developing the relationship with China years ago and it's bearing fruit now.

I think the fundamental problem with growing any sport is getting young people playing. I agree with you that sports like soccer and basketball can grow more easily in new places because you don't need a ton of infrastructure investment and equipment to play them. Get kids playing a sport and they'll tune in for the best in the world playing. But if you can't get kids playing the sport, it's harder to get them invested in it. And we all know that the NFL has big limitations on both the equipment/infrastructure requirements and also on attracting kids to play. More parents in the US are starting to prohibit their kids from playing because of the concussion worries. So I don't think the NFL will ever truly get a global audience, and that's why I agree with you that it's peaked.

I honestly see the NBA and MLS as the leagues in the US that have the best projections over the next 50 years. I think that MLS will probably take a good 15 years to be regularly included with major sports in news programs, but if the US Soccer Federation hires a president who can make youth soccer here look like the rest of the planet, then I could see it getting a much stronger foothold among the younger generations. I doubt many people who are 30 or older today ever care about MLS, but if they get more kids playing and they see that they can become a millionaire in MLS, I think it takes off with their generation.

I think UFC is probably on the rise but will be limited in growth by the safety concerns.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby Seahawks4Ever » Sun Feb 04, 2018 3:13 pm

The WORST thing about SEARS is that they were well positioned to BE Amazon yet in some of the most myopic business decisions EVER they closed their outlet and warehouse stores and to top it off they stopped the famous Sears Catalogue and basically gave away that HUGE customer mailing list. All Sears had to do was computerize and take advantage of all of the new technology, but nope, they didn't do it. Not every brick and mortar store chain had the advantages that Sears once had but Penny's also had an extensive customer mailing list that they too gave up but I don't believe they were as well positioned as Sears.

Look at Sam's Clubs, a whole bunch of them either just closed or are slated for closing. That surprised me. I am wondering about Costco if they will soon start closing stores too. I had always believed that Costco and Sam's Club and other warehouse stores were in good position to transform themselves and use their warehouses much like Amazon uses theirs and become more of an online shipping company. I guess I was wrong. Good thing I am NOT a money manager LOL. Costco stock has been a good investment over the years, I do hope that continues.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Mon Feb 05, 2018 7:29 am

Seahawks4Ever wrote:The WORST thing about SEARS is that they were well positioned to BE Amazon yet in some of the most myopic business decisions EVER they closed their outlet and warehouse stores and to top it off they stopped the famous Sears Catalogue and basically gave away that HUGE customer mailing list. All Sears had to do was computerize and take advantage of all of the new technology, but nope, they didn't do it. Not every brick and mortar store chain had the advantages that Sears once had but Penny's also had an extensive customer mailing list that they too gave up but I don't believe they were as well positioned as Sears.

Look at Sam's Clubs, a whole bunch of them either just closed or are slated for closing. That surprised me. I am wondering about Costco if they will soon start closing stores too. I had always believed that Costco and Sam's Club and other warehouse stores were in good position to transform themselves and use their warehouses much like Amazon uses theirs and become more of an online shipping company. I guess I was wrong. Good thing I am NOT a money manager LOL. Costco stock has been a good investment over the years, I do hope that continues.


I had a friend that used to own a Sears catalog store, and you're exactly right: They made some bad strategic decisions back in the early 80's just as computers were making forays into the business community.

The problem with the businesses that are at the top is that they tend to rest on their laurels. That's what killed Detroit, killed IBM, killed KMart. Costco is one of the kings of retail now, but indications are that the millennials are more apt to buy even groceries and fresh fruit and vegetables online, so 20 years from now, Costco could be in the same predicament as Sears is today.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby idhawkman » Mon Feb 05, 2018 7:59 am

RiverDog wrote:
I had a friend that used to own a Sears catalog store, and you're exactly right: They made some bad strategic decisions back in the early 80's just as computers were making forays into the business community.

The problem with the businesses that are at the top is that they tend to rest on their laurels. That's what killed Detroit, killed IBM, killed KMart. Costco is one of the kings of retail now, but indications are that the millennials are more apt to buy even groceries and fresh fruit and vegetables online, so 20 years from now, Costco could be in the same predicament as Sears is today.


Sometimes knowing the industry is a bad thing. E.g. Sears had huge mainframes and data storage for their customer base and catalogs. Knowing how expensive it was to buy those pieces of equipment, maintain them, cool them, UPS backups, etc etc etc... made them confident that others wouldn't be able to duplicate their operation with cheaper desktop computers.

Same thing happened to Yahoo when they were asked to buy Google for $1M and again for $7B. They refused both times because they were so sure that what they were doing was right and the new comer was just a fad. Can you imagine that Yahoo also turned down buying Facebook for $1.1B?

Now imagine a world where Yahoo (who was hacked and all account information was stolen) controlled Google and Facebook. Scary.

That all said, amazon will soon be broken up by the U.S. Govt. into smaller pieces just like AT&T, Microsoft, GM, IBM and many other companies that grew too big. Most people don't even know that the U.S. govt limits companies as to how much money they can have in cash. So those companies diversify their business into other areas to reduce their cash on hand but that only makes it to where they make much more cash faster. Then the Govt. breaks them apart. Weird how we work...
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby mykc14 » Mon Feb 05, 2018 8:18 am

RiverDog wrote:
Costco is one of the kings of retail now, but indications are that the millennials are more apt to buy even groceries and fresh fruit and vegetables online, so 20 years from now, Costco could be in the same predicament as Sears is today.


Costco is getting with the trend. You can get your Costco delivered to your door via Google Express.
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Re: NFL Losing Fans..Or Are They?

Postby RiverDog » Mon Feb 05, 2018 8:46 am

mykc14 wrote:Costco is getting with the trend. You can get your Costco delivered to your door via Google Express.


Yes, I saw that. But it wouldn't save their warehouse stores.
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