NFL attendance on game day has not returned to a level seen since 2007 when the league reported an all-time high of average attendance per game. The critics of fantasy football will say that contributing to the decline is the growth of fantasy sports and the changing habits of fantasy owners who wishes to watch more games at home. At home they have access to the internet where they can check their scores in real-time. By watching the games at home, that is contributing to the trend that NFL TV ratings are at all time high and NFL games frequently populate the list of most watched events on the Nielsen ratings.
To cater to those changing habits the NFL has provided conveniences to fantasy owners with such things as the launch of NFL Redzone where owners can see real-time highlights of big plays and scores. They have added fantasy lounges to the NFL stadium and television networks have provided more fantasy stats for the fantasy owners as part of the game broadcast.
Let's look closer at those NFL attendance numbers. The chart below looks at total attendance for NFL games from 2007 to 2012:
It does indeed look like after reaching a zenith at 17.45 million fans that attended games in 2007, the league is slowly gaining back attendance since 2011.
The numbers are actually worse than that of the above chart. Between the years 2007 and 2009. There were three new stadiums that added more capacity to games. So the overall potential of attendance is actually higher with those venues. Lucas Oil Field increased attendance capacity from 55,000 to 63,000 when the Indianapolis Colts moved from the RCA Dome in 2008. The New York Giants and New York Jets moved to MetLife Stadium and upped their game day attendance average to 82,000 from 80,000 when they moved from Giants Stadium. That is a potential of close to 90,000 added attendance per season.
However the big factor in the total attendance is the opening of Jerry's World in 2009. The Dallas Cowboys moved from Texas Stadium's capacity of 63,000 to the new Cowboys Stadium that can average 88,000 fans per game. When you factor in the Dallas Cowboys fan increase in attendance, the NFL attendance actually took a larger dip:
But the question is still, did fantasy football cause that decline? There was a major drop in attendance between 2007 to 2008 and continued to 2009. When you compare that to the growth of fantasy football in 2007-2009, the growth isn't actually that remarkable. The Fantasy Sports Trade Association estimated in 2007 there were 19.5 million fantasy football players in the US and Canada. Since 2007, the number of fantasy players have grown 14-16% year over year. In addition, fantasy growth has also been steady for several years leading up to 2007.
In addition, IBIS also reports that revenue from the Fantasy sport industry in 2007 was about $635 Million that year. That was a 30% growth rate from 2006. Revenue growth was a respectable 11% in 2008 and 4% in 2009. Since 2009, revenue again has been steady at around 11% per year. As I pointed out in a previous post, Where is the hockey stick when it comes to fantasy sports? there hasn't been a tipping point event that has changed the steady growth in fantasy sports into sensational growth.
Macro economic factors should also not be ignored in the overall attendance numbers. The Great Recession was a major downturn in the US economy that would affect the discretionary spending of consumers on items such as NFL game tickets. The Great Recession started in 2007 and had it's full effects felt by 2009. That does correspond and more closely align with the trend in attendance decline.
I would attribute that event and not the consuming patterns of the fantasy football owner that has contributed to the decline in NFL attendance. If however, the NFL attendance does continue to decline in 2013 after the efforts the NFL has invested in making the NFL game more appealing and the up turn in the economic conditions of the US, then I would start looking at fantasy sports and start blaming those couch loving fantasy football owners.
