Trietley: Other sports could fill void left by potential NFL lockout

As Al Michaels said during last Thursday’s broadcast of the NFL season opener, “Nothing like… As Al Michaels said during last Thursday’s broadcast of the NFL season opener, “Nothing like a labor statement to start a season.”

As a symbol of union solidarity, members of both the Minnesota Vikings and the New Orleans Saints united to point an index finger to the roof of the Superdome before the start of the primetime game. The NFL Players Association and the owners don’t like each other much these days, and both sides are gearing up for a work stoppage next fall.

But would you miss the NFL if it disappeared tomorrow?

No doubt, the NFL is the most popular league in the United States. Over 100 million Americans watched last year’s Super Bowl. CBS, NBC, FOX and ESPN pay the league $20.4 billion for television rights.

Still, there’s an argument to make against the NFL. As a work stoppage nears, should we cry “don’t go!” or grumble “good riddance”? Here are some arguments for both sides.

Good riddance: The NFL actually isn’t that exciting.

Football players do a lot of standing around. According to a Wall Street Journal study, the average NFL broadcast lasts 174 minutes. In those nearly three hours, the ball is in play on the field for an average of 11 minutes. In comparison, “players standing around” make up 67 minutes of the broadcast.

In contrast, the entirety of NBA games (48 minutes) and NHL games (60 minutes) consist of, well, the game. When play stops, the clock stops — unlike in football. The NFL, though, does give you plenty of time to chat with your friends.

The pinnacle of football excitement is the touchdown, but 32 teams together totaled 65 touchdowns in week one. Thirteen teams scored one or none. If soccer made goals worth six points, would people stop making fun of the low scoring?

Don’t go!: The NFL gives everyone a reason to party.

Football is about football as much as soccer is about soccer in the rest of the world. It’s more than the sport on the field.

The NFL provides fans with an all-day party every Sunday. The Super Bowl is a social event. What was the final score last year?

Who cares! Pass me some of those chips.

The NFL is the Avatar of sports. It’s a big-screen blockbuster, a Billboard chart-topper. It’s flashy, filled with hype and sticks in your head. We can’t do without it.

Good riddance: Other sports will rise to fill the void.

The sports world halts in favor of the NFL season. Nothing in sports right now can top the three-way battle between San Diego, San Francisco and Colorado for baseball’s National League West title, but nobody talks about that. Heck, ESPN hasn’t even mentioned LeBron lately.

If the NFL fades, other leagues will rise. Hockey’s television ratings will skyrocket. NBA teams other than the Celtics, Lakers and Heat will for once get some television exposure — provided that league doesn’t shut down too.

Without the NFL’s big money to lure them, college football stars will hesitate on leaving school early. College football and other sports won’t have to schedule around the NFL either. Quality cable programming might air Sunday afternoons.

FOX and ESPN, fearing an NFL work stoppage, entered a bidding war for Champions League soccer rights, which FOX won.

ESPN and Versus might do the same over the NHL. The Worldwide Leader in Sports also added MMA Live to its programming.

If the lack of NFL leads to more comprehensive televised sports coverage, sign me up.

Don’t go!: Coverage of the stoppage will turn ESPN into CNBC.

An NFL lockout or strike will cost a lot of groups a lot of revenue, but media outlets will still make their money by covering the work stoppage incessantly.

Replace every game highlight with a talking head and every box score with a graph explaining a nuance of a new proposal for a collective bargaining agreement. Basically, replace Brett Favre with talk suited for a cable news network.

Good riddance: The NFL needs to fix a few things anyway.

Video review slows the game to a crawl. Nobody knows what exactly a catch is — unless you define it with empty words like “possession” and “control.” The sport’s self-importance has ballooned. How many ex-players need to dissect the halftime score?

Probably not five.

If a work stoppage grounds the NFL for a season, owners and players alike should take a look in the mirror. Maybe they won’t like what they see. Maybe they’ll return in 2012 a little humbled and a little more down-to-earth.

Maybe they’ll point fewer fingers and just play some football.