Inessentials

The first round of the 2010 NFL draft is going on as I write. I have three different windows open in Google Chrome as I watch the NFL Network playing live on NFL.com, the ESPN NFL DraftCast, and (for my home team) the Packers.com camera that is an audio-less feed of the Packers’ war room. (Yes, they really do call the draft room the war room.) I just now switched off ESPN on TV because the Tivo is going to be full of NBC comedies and a really great season of Survivor.

And I’m only a moderately rabid fan. I don’t watch college games just to see who the best prospects are. I don’t do my own mock draft. But I do get awfully excited.

I’m presenting at a conference in a few months where I will discuss the concept of team loyalty, so stay tuned for my thoughts on that. But I thought I would take a couple moments tonight to explain to people who don’t follow sports (or follow other sports) why NFL fans care so much about the NFL draft, one of the biggest sporting events of the year.

1. The Wait It’s been nearly four months since most teams have played a game, and for many teams the last meaningful game was a month or two before that. Football has a shorter season (17 weeks) than other leagues (baseball: ~24, hockey: ~24, basketball: ~32). (None include playoffs.) So there is already less football, and considerably fewer games (16 per team, plus chance at playoffs). That makes the off-season for the biggest sport in the country the longest wait of big four sports.
2. Drama You don’t have to spend time around WWE wrestling fans to see guys who love melodrama. Watching a highly touted player drop through the first round as they squirm on national television or staring at shock at whatever stupid thing the Oakland Raiders do this year makes for really great reality television.
3. Shared Experience Sports fans are used to watching live sporting events. They talk about it immediately. We may live in a Tivo nation, but sports fans love their live shows.
4. Hope With the possible except of opening day, there is no day when a sports fan is filled with more hope than on draft day. No matter how bad your team is, your team will get better on draft day. In fact, the worse your team is, the better your draft picks, so (you hope) the more your team can improve on draft day. Sports fans love to see the interests of their team advanced, and they don’t get more advanced (usually) than on draft day.