Player salaries are soaring. Ticket prices have reached a point where most middle-class people can no longer afford to attend a game. Watching a game on TV you note that, in an increasing number of cities, you can see many, many empty seats in the TV background. Live attendance in these cities is obviously down. TV viewership of NFL games is also down...
Revenue from TV has enabled the NFL to be extremely profitable until now, despite some ominous signals cited above. But TV networks, facing declining ratings for football, may no longer find it profitable to pay billions for the rights to NFL games.
In crafting the next NFL-players contract, the parties involved must take care to avoid making the above warning signs worse. However, I personally believe that, whatever the final contract says, it will not be fan-friendly.
Just my opinion...
