If you’re a football fan who likes to monitor multiple games at once, look up stats while the game is going on, talk to other fans online or otherwise take advantage of modern technology on autumn Sundays, the couch is a better option than the stadium. And the NFL is concerned about that.
If the stadium experience can’t match the home experience, it’s going to be increasingly difficult to sell tickets, and so the NFL is hoping to enhance the stadium experience. NFL executive V.P. Eric Grubman told Alex Marvez of FOXSports.com that giving the fans in the stadium more information during breaks in the action on the field is an important priority for the league.
“When there are gaps [in action], if you think back 10 or 15 years ago, the tradition was to put relatively simple things on a relatively simple JumboTron,” Grubman said. “What we’re asking clubs is to think about a world-class programming mindset. Don’t depend on the exact flow of what’s going on on the field to provide a three-and-a-half-hour entertainment experience for the fan. There’s only a certain amount of time when there’s action on the field.”
Grubman said NFL teams need to think about how they can make the stadium a place where fans are connected to the rest of the league, just as they are at home.
“It’s the perfect match in a stadium to increase the connectivity and let them do the things on their social network that they want to do around football whether that’s fantasy, stats, texting, sending a picture, Facebook or Twitter,” he said.
If the fans in the stadium aren’t as connected as they are at home, they may stay home.