Has the NFL bubble burst?

[NewsBruin]

It seems weird to talk about bad online streaming as a reason ratings are down.

Fantasy got me interested in other teams I wouldn't have watched otherwise and matchup strategy, but it's also (after 15 years) made players feel even more anonymous and replaceable.

Also, for gamblers and non-gamblers, I wonder whether FF is still a draw. For gamblers, FF has gone the way of online poker, where more folks saw the wins concentrated in the wallets of whales harvesting newbies' money (and then all being shut down by the feds). For non-gamblers, like me, maybe a lot of them have "figured out" the game to where the time investment in players is no longer worth the thrill of victory. When my league drafted this year, most of my players were whomever Yahoo had at the top of their position, with me shrugging and saying, "Sure, why not?"

For me, I feel like I've aged out of following players younger than me, playing out the same drama lines I've seen before. At least the kneeling protests are something novel.

[Harlan Huckleby]

Fantasy got me interested in other teams I wouldn't have watched otherwise and matchup strategy, but it's also (after 15 years) made players feel even more anonymous and replaceable.

I hadn't thought about this angle. Everybody has their own ax to grind on why the NFL is losing interest; mine is that players have become interchangeable parts. Fantasy football probably contributes as much to that perception as the constantly churning rosters.