The NFL surges like no other league

The New England Patriots are gone, and so are the Indianapolis Colts and Philadelphia Eagles. So too are the Baltimore Ravens, Seattle Seahawks, Kansas City Chiefs and Atlanta Falcons, setting up the perfect scenario for the NFL. The four remaining teams in this year’s playoffs are the Jets, Steelers, Bears and Packers, and no matter which combination of teams make it to the Super Bowl, the NFL is assured to have a glamorous matchup. The Bears and Jets represent the two largest markets in the league (what with no team in Los Angeles), and the Steelers and Packers are institutions in American sports, and are even more well-known than their big city counterparts (though they’ve never actually met in the big game).

But even if the Super Bowl was between the Seahawks and the Chiefs, the league would still pull in monster ratings -- 100 million viewers guaranteed. The NFL is the only sports league that can not only survive, but thrive without a marquee matchup. No other league can say that; the NHL desperately needs cold-weather teams to advance in the postseason; baseball needs the Red Sox, Yankees and Cubs to be great, and the NBA requires one of its major superstars, preferably Kobe Bryant and LeBron James, to make it to the finals.

It’s for this reason that the other three sports leagues have all experienced their lowest-rated championship series within the last five years. For the NBA, it was when the Cavaliers got blown out by the ratings-kryptonite Spurs in 2007; that same year also saw the Ottawa Senators and Anaheim Ducks flounder in the Stanley Cup, and saw a four-game sweep by the Red Sox over the Rockies that was initially the worst-rated series ever, only to be surpassed by Rays-Phillies a year later.

Meanwhile, while the other leagues have slowly seen their ratings decrease either to fragmentation or lack of interest, the NFL’s ratings have continued to climb, so much so that last year’s Super Bowl set the record as the most-viewed American television program in history. It’s an incredible feat that contradicts the down slope that every other sport is experiencing, and ironically, it might be that success that winds up biting them in the rear. It was that assurance of ratings that led the league to recruit replacement players in the 80’s, when they last suffered a work shortage. An although they probably won’t revisit that tactic, the NFL will have a lockout later this year because the owners hold all the leverage. They know how good things are right now, and with things being perfect comes a complete lack of willingness to compromise.

But things are not perfect. The league is undergoing a radical transformation, as rising concerns over concussions threaten to dismantle the very nature of the game. And while the NFL will come out of the lockout as the heavyweight champion of sports, its ratings will no doubt trickle downward, as seen when the other sports took some time off. A Wall Street Journal article last week asked the pivotal question: is this the high point of the NFL? It would certainly seem that way with a lockout looming, but until another work shortage occurs, there’s no sense predicting when the league will lose popularity. As long as it’s on TV, anything but a continuous growth in viewership is the reality.