18 Game Season

This idea has been floating around for a while. I haven't addressed this yet so I will go into depth with it in many different angles.  Let's jump right into it.  I'm going to do a list of pros and cons and then explain my position on it...

PROS

More Football
I don't think any fan will argue that the football season goes by too quickly.  Every year I find myself looking back nostalgically on week one thinking about how great the season was and how quickly it went by.  This past year I was lucky that the Packers won the Super Bowl and played in all 3 playoff games, but some fans aren't that lucky.  20 teams miss the playoffs every year and the fans of those 20 teams have their seasons truncated after 16 games.  Some teams get 17 games, some teams get 18, some 19, and some 20.  If the league expands to 18 games, it would almost be like every team makes the playoffs.

More Revenue--Bigger Pie
With 2 more regular season games, the cash flow is even higher.  This will come at the loss of two preseason games (I will get to that in the "Cons" section).  Most teams have season ticket plans where you must also purchase preseason tickets at full price, so the revenue won't come from ticket sales.  Where the money will come from, however, is the increased importance of the games.  Now that the games have meaning, more people will attend them, purchase concessions, team gear, parking, and so on.  This also gives the teams leverage to strike deals with sponsors in the stadium and the NFL leverage to get better TV deals and sponsor deals.

More Chances for Teams to Make the Playoffs
With 18 games, you're now increasing each team's chances of making the playoffs.  If you have 4 10-6 teams, you have another 2 weeks to set yourself above the competition.  It gives teams a bit of extra breathing room in case they hit a snag like an injury bug or a string of a couple close losses.  This may spike overall interest seeing as fans still have hope after 8 games that the teams have another 10 games to right the problems rather than 8.

Expanded Roster Sizes
Everybody loves the story of the low round draft pick or the undrafted free agent becoming a star.  Guys like Tom Brady, Jerome Harrison, Arian Foster, Tramon Williams, and Antonio Gates are examples of big time guys with little appreciation coming out of college.  With an expanded roster, more of these guys will have a chance to crack the lineup and break the stigma that only big school, top draft picks can play.

CONS
Diminished Product
One problem of expanding the season to 18 games is that you're most likely going to be stretching 16 games worth of quality over 18 games.  You're just going to see the top teams continue to win and the bottom teams continue to lose.   It's bad enough when teams like Carolina are 2-14, imagine them going 2-16?  You may lose overall viewers.  The benefit to having 16 games is that every game counts and every game means something.  If you move it to 18, you're giving the fans a product that is only marginally better than preseason games.  You want to make a product that's superior to preseason.

Now I know a lot of you are saying, "Mike, it's only two games!! How can adding two games diminish the product??"  Well look at it this way.  Baseball is 162 games.  Football is 16.  So roughly every 10 baseball games=1 football game.  Now if you want to keep that same ratio with 18 games, you would need 182 baseball games.  You can imagine if baseball added another 20 games, there would be a lull in the middle of the season when fans wouldn't care as much.  You can bet the same is true with football.  Part of the captivating qualities of football is that it's winning matters more than almost anything.  You're taking away from the quality of the wins by adding more games.  This will also eat into the bottom line.  Once games start becoming less interesting, less fans will view games making it harder for owners to impose such high prices for games.  

Loss of Two Preseason Games
I understand most of you would have this under the "Pros" heading.  I disagree though.  Fans look at preseason in the perspective of "how entertaining is this to me"?  That attitude is the one fans should have.  But let's not get past the point of preseason.  It has more recently become a bit more entertainment, but there is also plenty of functionality that comes from preseason games.  This is a way for teams to see their draft picks and free agents in real, live, game action.  You can look good hitting your own guys, but teams want to see you play in real game situations. 

From a fan's perspective, you can also see aspects of your team that you wouldn't normally see.  It's cool to see a Graham Harrell handing off to Tyrell Sutton in Green Bay.  I could imagine the same is true elsewhere.  Tony Pike throwing to Brandon LaFell.  It's interesting to me.  I understand that most people aren't a lunatic like me, but it's nice to imagine once in a while.

Increased Risk of Injury
Now, I'm not delusional.  I know that when starters play in preseason, they usually don't go 100%.  If you add two more games, you're increasing their playing time by a lot more than that.  You'll have to truncate the preseason process from 4 games to 2 games, forcing the starters to play for longer to get better looks.  The laws of odds take over after that.  Adding another 100+ snaps to a players body will take it's toll.  Injuries will likely pile up.  You will also be taking away from the player's wage earning years.  Every 8 years would be like playing 9 under the current system.  It's not much, but that's at least $760,000 you're preventing a player from earning.  The players ARE going to get more money for playing more games, but they won't likely make as much as they would have playing for more years.

Scheduling Problems
Under the current system, the schedule is a thing of beauty.  Each team plays 16 games so here is the breakdown.  Each team plays their own division twice, once home and once away (6).  Each division plays one AFC and one NFC division other than their own once.  The division rotates each year (8).  The remaining two games are played against the two teams in your conference who finished in the same spot in their division as you did in yours, but aren't in the division you're playing.

Example: Giants play the NFC East twice, NFC West, AFC East, and the Saints ( 2nd place NFC South) and Packers (2nd place NFC North).   

Now add two more games in there.  Do you play two teams from the AFC divisions you don't play?  If so, which two?  There are three you don't play.  How do you determine this, how do you make this work?  16 games and 32 teams.  The symmetry is perfect. 


Given the two sides, I think I lean more towards NOT adding two games.  I love football, but adding two more games would take away more than it would give back.  The more games there are, the less demand there are for the games.  Think of a baseball game in July.  You can get seats for $10, even for a marquee team like the Yankees.  I went to DC for a Redskins-Packers game this past year and had seats in the second to last row of the STADIUM.  90,000+ seat stadium.  The tickets were $100+.  Adding more games will only lower that price as the season moves on.  I really hope that they don't agree to more games.