Ben Gilbert

Because the average number of people who watch any given NFL game, pick your metric.

Is it the average Monday night football game?

Is it the average kickoff game of the season?

Is it the average Super Bowl?

It's like up and down over the last 20 years.

It's amazing that it's as high as it is when people don't watch anything else on TV.

But I honestly, I'm having a hard time understanding how they grow the fan base.

Right.

And then you have this interesting question of, is college football starting to pay players competitive to the NFL or additive?

Because college football has fueled the growth of the NFL.

I mean, think about it this way.

The NBA and Major League Baseball teams have to pay to operate farm teams that no one wants to watch or play in.

And the NFL gets all the benefit of all the development of all of these players in their college years for free.

Right.

they benefit from the storylines around them too.

So when someone comes into Major League Baseball and gets promoted out of the minors, everyone's like, who cares?

I have no idea who that person is.

Whereas the Heisman Trophy winner who you know about what their childhood was like comes out of NCAA football out of the... Right.

Yeah.

College football has been the best thing to ever happen to the NFL for basically its whole existence.