re: No one cares about college football anymore

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Nerds normally care more about physics club and avoiding the inside of lockers so your experience regarding fb makes sense.

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If only If only.

I'd be more successful and not spend more of my work day here.

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Hundreds of millions of people across the world watch college football. Thanks for the melt.

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You cannot argue with the declining attendance across the board. Millenials do not care about football and if they do it is the NFL. So, while those millions watch now, there are losses each year. Football, unfortunately, is on its way down, like baseball did in the 80s and 90s. People still watch baseball but it's not the sport that it once was and definitely not America's pasttime. College football is headed down the same road. It doesn't help that we have such a corrupt NCAA system that keeps the same handful of teams good and the rest don't have a chance.

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What about ratings? That's what matters.

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Ratings are down across the board too. At least they were a few weeks back. When student sections stay empty even during big games, like we see at a lot of SEC schools now, you have an inevitable future problem. It may take 10 years for the impact to start but we are seeing it now. Did you miss the round of layoffs that ESPN has done over the past few years? Another knock-off effect on football is people cutting paid TV service. That money doesn't come in like it used to for funding ESPN. What you will start to see is when the conference TV deals come up for renewal, the money won't be as good. We will never get deals again like we did a few years ago.

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Ratings are down across the board too.

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No, they aren't.

This is after last season but tells the story. Numbers from this season haven't been compiled anywhere that I have seen. If I am wrong, I am wrong about this season only. The truth of the matter is that less youngsters are interested in football. That is a fact. They will not grow up to follow football. Their kids, in turn, will not be fed football and will grow up with even less interest. This is the trend.

Sucks for them. College football is the greatest thing ever created.

Plus these kids listen to shitty music. I could care less what they like

I'm honestly ashamed to admit I was a mean girl in school. I've changed my ways. You see how nice I am now.

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College football is not as popular as it used to be among young people.

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Sorry, but the ratings speak otherwise

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At my school, the only thing people care about it the NBA, if they care about sports at all.

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I lived in Atlanta for 5 years, and the NBA is the last thing anyone in Georgia cared about. For Hawks games one could pay $5 for a ticket and walk down and sit courtside.

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I just hate that all that people my age care about in sports today is basketball players with raging egos and games that don’t matter that much.

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many kids don't start becoming immersed in college football until they begin college. It's not unusual.

Y'all are shooting the messenger.

Fewer kids are playing youth football because their parents don't want them to get their brains scrambled or take the kind of risks that were natural for us old farts, plus physical toughness isn't as big a deal in a technological world as it was in the industrial days when folks worked physical jobs in factories. (I'm aware that some jobs still require it.)

Fewer high school students are playing football, for the same reasons.

That eventually will have an impact on college football, unless you start using robots instead of human beings.

At some point, in our lifetimes IMO, there will be changes in the rules to reduce the risk of injury to the point where the sport will not be recognizable compared to its present form. (I think kickoffs will be abolished sooner than later.) Not because of wussification, but because the NFL and potentially the NCAA are going to gag on the notion of paying out massive settlement sums to people who've gotten their brains scrambled or been physically maimed.

And for the libertarians out there, I absolutely concede that people have made the conscious choice to take those risks because of the incredible potential rewards involved, but that choice will IMO be taken out of their hands at some point.

All this will happen last in the South and in the SEC where football is a religion and where it remains the most popular because it's so ingrained in our culture. But it will eventually happen.

The question is, will anyone still be watching when it does?

And I think the OP is probably right on target with his assessment outside the SEC hotbed that this forum focuses on.