There are several effective arguments to be made, that the NFL needs a developmental league, somewhere along the lines of what the NBA has with their D-League. We can make an effective argument beyond the fact that two 2010 draft eligible QB’s (Tim Tebow, and Mike Kafka) may have their career derailed, because these is no such league in place. There is nowhere for them to hone their skills, beyond the UFL. However, there are several business related issues that prove the NFL needs a D League of their own.
Just about everything the NFL puts of TV these days is a ratings monster. While the Super Bowl is obvious, many forget the NFL draft has is of the most watched sports programs of the year. It is watched by so many that the first three rounds of the 2010 NFL Draft will be shown in prime time.
That leaves four rounds to be shown beginning Saturday morning. Most of the players taken in these rounds are destined to be third stringers, or practice squad players, who will get to hold clipboards and such on Sunday. These players will for the most disappear from the public eye for the duration of their careers.
In essence that NFL is asking its fans to watch hours of TV coverage about players that they may never see again. That is bad business, why watch draft programming about players who have no real shot at making a significant splash in the NFL. This is the real reason why the Major League Baseball Draft isn’t as popular. So many of the players drafted there have no shot at ever seeing a big league roster.
Of course the argument against all this is Tom Brady, who was a 6th round selection, but he is really the exception that proves this rule, the 5th to 7th rounds of the NFL draft do not matter to the average fan.
No if there were so kind of Developmental league these rounds would be spent on players teams are looking to develop. The simple fact here is the NFL does a bad job of developing players. When star players get hurt, his role on the team gets turned over to a guy who has not have played, often times for a significant amount of time. In baseball when a guy gets hurt, there is someone to take his spot that at the very least has been actively playing the sport at that position.
Now let us move to the NFL network. To make the NFL network a viable enterprise, it needs more live football games. Sure the Third Thanksgiving Day game is nice, and the weekly Thursday night games are good, but that channel needs more live football, and the NFL calendar is about tapped out.
Sure Roger Goodell may ax two of the pre-season games, and get the yearly NFL tally up to 18 regular season games. He might even be able to get a number of these extra games to be aired on the NFL Network. However, that will not be enough to satisfy the appetite of football fans.
If there were a D league the NFL network would benefit greatly from having those extra games to broadcast, not to mention the amount of games broadcasts the league could sell to one of the many cable channels out there looking for programming. This opens up a new revenue stream and that is always good for business.
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