The picture shown above was at the 2nd half kickoff... lots of people not in their seats at that time. Other shots show a much fuller stadium - which is what I saw when watching the game. But SF is definitely having attendance problems... I'd say maybe only 75-80% of the seats are full at games.

The started to suck just as they moved into their new stadium. The first year attendance was great - but the novelty wore off and people didn't want to drive that distance to the new stadium to see a really horrible team.

Overall, NFL attendance has dropped. I think it's simply a sign of changing sports consumption habits and economics. It's really hard to beat watching multiple games in HD in the comfort of your own home for free. This is something all sports leagues will have to deal with.

Not sure what game that was but later photos of the game below showed the stadium half full.

49ers sell out Levi’s Stadium for TNF, but only half show up
David Fucillo ninersnation.com Oct 7, 2016,

The San Francisco 49ers had essentially a sell-out crowd on hand for Thursday Night Football, with the game report saying paid attendance was 70,178. I believe Super Bowl 50 had the largest football crowd in the first 2+ seasons, with an announced 71,088 in attendance.

The 49ers are likely going to announce sellouts for each of their remaining home games this season. The number might change from game-to-game due to things like standing room tickets sold, but it will be essentially a sellout.

Of course, as we saw last night, and as we’ve seen before, a sellout does not mean that the stands are actually full of fans. Numerous people were tweeting and I heard from several folks who pointed to a stadium that was no more than half full. We’ll never know the full number for certain because the 49ers are not going to release the turnstile attendance (we certainly did not when I worked at the A’s!), but we know people are choosing to stay home.

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As far as I can tell, it's basically a confluence of two factors:

1) There has never been a worse time to attend a game in person - think about it, $100 was considered fairly big money for a sports event just 20 years ago, now it only gets you mediocre nosebleeds in many popular venues. Security rigamarole means you have to get there early to go through increasingly airport-like screening. Traffic. Expensive everything inside the stadium. Miss all the other games because of the time it takes to get there and back.

2) There has never been a better time to watch sports on TV - pretty well anyone with a job that gives you disposable income can afford a big screen HDTV with access to multiple games a week.

In 1977 your options were spend $25 on a pair of tickets or make do with an AM radio, or if you were lucky, on a 21" fuzzy low-def TV.

These days, your options are spend $250 on a pair of tickets or just stay home and watch on a 55" HD screen.

Especially today with kids who have grown up around their social interaction being through a handheld device. The need for face to face contact seems to be waning. In the olden days kids hung out at the mall (or wherever) to meet with friends, much less so today.

Another phenomena is kids are getting their driver's license much later than in years past, they don't need it to maintain contact with others.

And one last piece of the "craziness" of change. There are those who suggest that the period of adolescence carry on until a yoiung person is through with college, meaning essentially your "teenage" years will go until you are 25.

Might be too early to judge the Chargers attendance by the pre-season games.
Most stadiums are less than half-full during the pre-season.

I don't even watch the games on TV. It's basically just a bunch of 2nd and 3rd stringers trying to make the team, and the rarely used key players trying to avoid injury. It's not very entertaining.

Do people really watch the NFL for the football entertainment or more the spectacle, betting, fan pool, Monday morning office water cooler talk.

Very few people in Canada are xs and os type of fans.

I agree with all points made that it is hard to beat watching football in the comfort of your own home, with cheaper beer and better, clearer view of any game on demand, with no commercials (those who have pvr). It is the same with CFL as well.... however, I would argue the complete opposite for soccer, where the entertainment value being live at the stadium is exactly why MLS attendance numbers are doing so great, and tV numbers so poor... The entertainment of the live event and in-game experience appears exciting, with all the drinking and singing and jumping, compared to sitting infrint of the tv just watching soccer.

Over 80,000 in Lambeau Field to see the Packers- Seahawks game. I'm sure that the Giants - Cowboys, and many more games were well above 50,000 to 60,000, or more in attendance. I don't know why everyone points out the minority of games/teams with attendance issues, rather than the great success that the NFL is.

I would agree that orgs like MLSE have done a fantastic job tying into the "millennial" market but I wonder as they age will that loyalty remain. This demo has grown up around downloading/streaming content for free they may not be the most reliable of markets long term. No one has yet figured out how to monetize social media to the point of replacing an NFL sized TV contract.

Also, those rabid MLS fans may be the total extent of their market. They talk about how they don't watch conventional TV and their ratings are abysmal so where does the growth come from without a large TV contract. Where will the money for growth come from?

There's no denying that, but the NFL should be looking at these issues as should the CFL in the three biggest cities. Is this just a temporary abheration, or will it continue to grow. And while neither league is in any peril, I would sure be concerned and making it a priority as something to try and fix.

Sport of the future, rugby sevens. Cheap to play, very fun to watch and tailor made for the new content viewer. Fast paced and quick games (seven minute halves) so there isn't a big spectator investment of time.

I don't know a damn thing about rugby but I like watching it. Tell me this isn't entertaining

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Below isn't sevens but it's the wide open type play you will see and my favourite play

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Spectacle only really applies to the Super Bowl... regular season games and playoffs are just games... you wouldn't be watching at all if you don't like football or like football and bet.

There's a lot of overlap between people who watch it for the game and people who bet. I used to be in FF pools, but stopped because it got in the way of just enjoying the game. I know a lot of people who watch just for the game itself. I also know a few people who are in football pools but don't actually watch the games because they don't find it interesting. Hard to dedicate so much time to watching football games only because you're in a pool, but don't enjoy the sport. You can do just as well on the pools just by perusing the stats on Monday morning to make your picks.

Funny, I used to do well in hockey pools without ever watching the games. I used to buy the Hockey News preview/pool edition, worked every time, unless someone got hurt :)

I hate sevens haha, but that's cause I've been playing standard rugby for a very long time. Sure sevens can be fun to watch, but it could never become a legitimate sport. It's the arena football of rugby. You couldn't have a sevens "league", just cause the games are so short. It pains me when I see TV channels market it as "rugby" because it's not. I see sevens growth as an obstacle in the growth of 15s.

I've thought about that as well, but mainstream sports are going to have to change to stay relevant. Because of all the news about CTE and concussions, the CFL has initiatives to get flag football really going in schools. Parents are now conditioned to keep their kids away from contact sports. The wide open play of sevens might help mitigate that.

The CFL for sure and likely the NFL are looking for "transitional" sports to get kids interested in playing like games and later transition them when they are older into full contact.

I agree with you that some traditionalists might frown on sevens but you can't argue with its popularity. Regular rugby (15s) seems to have opened up more from when I remember it, as exceeding slow and plodding which is not very good if you don't have much knowledge of the sport.

And with social interaction being so far different than when I was a child, even then it was damn near impossible to get a real game of baseball going, so you played a bastardized version of it. 15s rugby and football are likely the same, you play an improvised version on the playground and that maintains/creates interest.

Well I would argue that rugby is overall much safer than football due to the different rules around contact, so CTE is less of a concern, although it's definitely still there.

Rugby's definitely sped up from before, but I could still obviously see how 15s may be dull to watch for a new viewer. That be said, football is largely guys standing around and yet it's very popular.

There's nothing wrong with sevens, both to play recreationally as you mentioned as well as as a spectator sport. My concern lies in North American market forces billing it as the standard-bearer of rugby, thereby seriously hurting any chances of the growth of 15s. I mean 3 on 3 hockey/basketball is fun to play and watch too, but at the end of the day, I want to see the real thing.

It's in the Olympics so that legitimizes (and popularizes) it. Having said that, much of those damn XGames stuff that I can't stand is in the Winter Olympics so I can't be a hypocrite.

I just look at does it really take away from the integrity of the sport, I don't think sevens does, but that's just my opinion. I would think that a more knowledgeable traditionalist would disagree.

They are going to have mixed doubles curling in the Olympics, I don't know what to think, but anything that helps grow the game can't be all bad.

They were blasting music between shots of the doubles before (don't know if they changed it)

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I agree with that, I don't wanna see any of that 3on3 stuff either but rugby as a mainstream sport in North America did not catch on (and I do know its long history) so the market is wide open for sevens in NA.

As concerning safety, you get a lot of PC propaganda regarding what is dangerous and how often it is reported in the media. Heading a soccer ball at speed cannot be good and you very rarely hear that gymnastics is probably the most dangerous sport out there for injuries.

One thing that scared me a while back was a CMNT game where defender Steven Vitoria took a free kick off the head at full speed. Something at that rate of speed could be lethal, he went down and I was thankful he was able to get up.

I should clarify, by "legitimate sport" I mean something you could build a traditional league system out of, with at least a few months of regular games, standings, playoffs, etc. Sevens is a tournament sport; games are 14 minutes long and teams play as many as 4 games a day. It's not really something geared towards emotional investment in your team or convenient watching.

It's obviously a real, difficult, demanding sport and I think the high scoring is flashy but it lessens the appeal of it to me. Hockey would be worse with 10-8 scores than it is like now with 4-2 scores.

It was kind of like that in the 80s and people didn't seem to mind!