How the NFL keeps fans transfixed even when there are no games
The show must go on
Nothing draws an audience quite like the National Football League. The season opener in September 2023 attracted nearly 25m viewers, and in February almost 124m Americans tuned in for Super Bowl LVIII. Yet the NFL is not satisfied with dominating the media for only five months a year. It has developed an uncanny ability to turn ordinary off-season events into spectacles.
Explore more
This article appeared in the United States section of the print edition under the headline “Off-season offence”
United States May 25th 2024
- Rural white voters in Wisconsin could decide America’s election
- What the cases of Robert Menendez and Henry Cuellar have in common
- How the NFL keeps fans transfixed even when there are no games
- Time is running out to fix America’s student-aid mess
- Fewer migrants are crossing America’s southern border
- Some would-be American immigrants are paying to get robbed
- Politics is the law in Texas
From the May 25th 2024 edition
Discover stories from this section and more in the list of contents
Explore the editionMore from United States
Pam Bondi seems like a relatively safe pair of hands
But is America’s next attorney-general an independent operator?
Checks and Balance newsletter: Joe Biden’s farewell shot at the oligarchy
The outgoing president warns of a new “tech-industrial complex”
A protest against America’s TikTok ban is mired in contradiction
Another Chinese app is not the alternative some young Americans think it is
Joe Biden wound up serving Donald Trump
In some ways, his administration will look less like an interregnum than like MAGA-lite
How bad will the smoke be for Angelenos’ health?
Expect more sickness and disrupted schooling
Should you have to prove your age before watching porn?
America’s Supreme Court weighs a Texan law aimed at protecting kids