NFL’s Brian Rolapp: ‘We Are Looking Very Hard at the Commercialization of the Game’

In considering ratings drop, the league is pondering how best to allocate commercials

Much has been made of the NFL’s double-digit ratings drop this season, and everyone has an opinion on why. Is it the election? Is it a lack of quality of play on the field? With Thursday nights now in play, are there too many nights of football?

Brian Rolapp

Among the factors that the NFL has the power to control are pace of play, the perceived large numbers of stoppages, the number of penalties, and the length of time it takes to make an official review. Speaking on Wednesday at NAB New York, NFL EVP of Media Brian Rolapp said that the league and his department are “looking very hard at the commercialization of the game.” He noted that the average NFL game can contain up to 70 commercial units and that the league’s media team is contemplating different ways to allocate that inventory.

“It’s not just taking commercials out of the game and looking to do something different,” he said. “Do you spread out the commercial deposit differently? In a world where Netflix has no commercials and every consumer is conditioned to a 15-second preroll on YouTube, is there a better way that we can do commercials with our broadcast partners? We’re looking hard at that.”

Rolapp was also quick to defend against the ratings drop, noting that the league is coming off its two most historically successful ratings seasons and noting that, over the past 15 years, NFL ratings are up 27% while broadcast television as a whole is down 36%. He also noted that, in every presidential election year since 1992, the NFL has seen ratings drop.

“We’re not overly surprised,” he said. “Having said that, we don’t blame everything on the election. We look really hard at the ratings and ask ourselves ‘What do fans think?’ ‘How do we make it better?’ The average margin of victory in our primetime games has been two or three touchdowns. They haven’t been very good games. How do we improve the quality of the games? How do we get better games into the primetime schedule? We look long and hard at the length of games. The average NFL game is 3 hours and 6 minutes; which is down. Could they be shorter? Could the pace of play be better? Do we need as many stoppages in play. It’s taking too long to review replays. Why are penalties up? So we’re not overly worried.”