NFL Thursday games: Is there such a thing as too much football?
There is a common notion that if you truly love something, you can never possibly get enough of it. No matter the level of immersion, there is no saturation point with something in which you’re so passionate. The question then becomes, does that notion carry the same weight with America’s passion, NFL football?
Since the birth of Monday Night Football in 1970, the NFL has played its games on Sundays and Mondays. In 2013, the NFL implemented Thursday night games beginning in week 2 and extending through week 16. There’s no question the majority of NFL fans currently love the added game every week, but there’s a substantial amount of football fans that feel this added game might eventually over-saturate the game we all know and love.
The popular opinion is that three days of watching football is better than two days. Well put me down as a football fan that is against the added Thursday night games. Why? Well, let’s face it; the NFL is a better product than college football for a reason. College football is on every week during the season, usually three to even four days out of the week. Now for a die-hard college football junkie, three days of college football is epic. But as some point however, the casual and avid college fans are not tuning in three nights out of the week. Why watch tonight when I can catch the games tomorrow?
This is the fear when it comes to the NFL. I get it, if your team (or my team) is playing Thursday night; of course you’re watching the game. But for the casual fan that has no dog in the fight, chances are, you’re just going to wait and catch the games on Sunday.
Bottom line is this; fans love NFL football because we’re only guaranteed 16 meaningful games every year. This is not baseball (162 games) or basketball (82 games) where your team is playing every other day during the week. Rather, we love the NFL because of its isolation to Sundays and Monday nights from only early September until late December. When Sunday finally comes we are starving for NFL football. If the NFL continues to add more and more games throughout the week (because let’s face it, Thursday night games are just the starting point), it will eventually get to the point where fans are not foaming at the mouth for the NFL on Sunday afternoons, and that’s bad business for the all powerful National Football League.
