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The NFL Is Trying To Improve Your In-Stadium Experience, Because It’s More Fun To Watch Football From Home

Ever been at a football game and just get so frustrated during a challenge timeout? Not knowing what the hell was going on, because you were forced to look at the inadequate replays the home team pulled together? Well, fear not: your nightmare state of mild inconvenience is over. The NFL announced Thursday it will show the ‘under the hood’ challenge replays on jumbotrons for everyone in the stadium to see (and pick apart).

“They’ll see the exact same angles at the exact same time as [the ref] does,” Rich McKay, the Atlanta Falcons’ president and NFL competition committee chairman, said this week.

This is good, since it will make fans in the stadium feel more plugged in. But is it enough?

NFL football is blindingly popular in America, and a major part of its growth over the last few years has been the improvement of the at-home viewing experience. With NFL RedZone, giant HD TVs, and the internet, the best place to watch football on Sundays is from your couch. From there, your high-tech sports command center, you can see multiple games, keep track of your fantasy team, and not shell out ridiculous amounts of money for parking. But there’s one facet of the game’s growth that’s stalled because of our improving creature comforts: the in-stadium experience.

Many NFL stadiums don’t have reliable Wi-Fi, making it tough to check your Fantasy Football mobile app. The out-of-town scoreboard, once seen as a good way to keep track on what inter-divisional rivals were doing, now seems cute (in a pathetic way), since you can see actual highlights of other games when you watch on TV. And while there is nothing like seeing an NFL game in person (you can’t tailgate from your living room, after all), ticket prices aren’t getting any more affordable.

By making small improvements like this, and giving you access to replays that folks at home (who are watching for free) can see, the NFL is hoping to reel you back in. Is it enough? What other improvements need to be made to get you to shell out for tickets to an NFL game? Tell us in the comments.

[Via ESPN]

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