Friday Football Footnotes: 1 neutral site AFC title game would be bad enough — making it permanent is an awful idea

Now that the door has been opened to such a conversation, there are some who feel that the NFL may give consideration to having the AFC and NFC Championship games in a neutral site.

Dumb idea.

Well, dumb from the standpoint of what’s good for the fans. I’m sure it’d be a good idea to line the league’s wallet. For Commissioner Roger Goodell, really, what else matters? More for the shield on the whole, means more for him and the owners as well.

And, yes, such a concept is surely possible. This whole conversation has started because Atlanta may have to host an AFC Championship game in a few weeks if the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs are the two combatants.

That’s because, in its infinite wisdom, the NFL decided to pivot on the fly from its previously written plan to go with winning percentage to determine things such as seeding and home-field advantage to rewritten rules before Week 18 that called for the potential of coin flips and a neutral-site championship game.

All this was necessary after the league canceled the Week 17 “Monday Night Football” game (due to the collapse of Buffalo defensive back Damar Hamlin) between the Bills and Cincinnati Bengals, thus leaving the two franchises with incomplete seasons and win totals that were askew from the rest of the conference.

Yet there are those who believe Goodell and others in the NFL offices are quietly optimistic over the prospect of using this unforeseen set-up as a test balloon to help determine if the league should pursue the idea of permanently making the championship game at neutral site locations.

. @bobfescoe just said on @ExtraPointWGR that he's been told it's "inevitable" the AFC and NFC Championship Games will eventually be played at neutral sites every year.

— Sal Capaccio ???? (@SalSports) January 11, 2023

The theory is that the conference championship games are big enough events that they could essentially be treated as two mini-Super Bowls on the same weekend — with a week’s worth of NFL-spun marketing options and money-making activities woven throughout the host city.

To say nothing of the corporate outreach possibilities, in-stadium advertising and revenue generated through league ticket sales.

This year, because of the short notice, the NFL has said that season ticket holders in K.C. and Buffalo who committed to purchase AFC title game tickets will get first priority for ticket purchases for the new host location.

But if the NFL makes this move an annual occurrence, don’t expect that to be the case. Via a New York Times Service post at Boston.com a few years ago, they broke down the ticket allocation for the Super Bowl to be at 17.5% to each of the participating teams, 5% to the host team, 1.2% to each of the other 29 teams and 25.2% to the league office.

More for the league and less for the teams involved. Then there is the issue of traveling (in some cases from wintery northern cities) less than a month after the holidays, plus the potential expense that fans may want to hold off incurring if their team wins and gets to go to the Super Bowl.

Those are just the logistical ways fans would get screwed by this decision. There’s the emotional component too. Just think of all the epic AFC title game memories — good and bad — that were forged in Pittsburgh in front of home crowds at Three Rivers Stadium and Acri(Heinz Field)sure Stadium.

Troy Polamalu’s interception against the Ravens. Ryan Clark’s hit on Willis McGahee. Dennis Gibson’s pass-break up in the endzone to nail down the Chargers upset. The Colts’ Hail Mary that fell incomplete in the end zone. Heartbreaking losses to the New England Patriots. Holding off a big comeback from the New York Jets in the 2010-11 game.

Every city’s fan base should get to witness moments like that. To celebrate like that. To hurt like that. It’s the ultimate payoff for slogging out preseason games in August heat and late-season games in January cold to support your team.

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The fans don’t deserve to have that late experience taken away from them, especially No. 1 seeds that earn a bye. Under the current format, if the championship games move to neutral stadiums, the top seed in each conference will only get to host one playoff game.

So the other division winners potentially get two home games in the postseason, but the regular season conference champs only get a maximum of one? That doesn’t seem right.

I know, I know. The NFL will have a simple solution for that. Get rid of the bye and throw an eighth team in the playoff bracket of both conferences. Maybe I should stop talking while I’m already behind.

Then again, if that adjustment had been in place this year, it would’ve gotten the 2022 Steelers into the postseason as the fourth wild card with another chance to get throttled by the Chiefs. Wouldn’t that have been fun?

Then there is the weather element of the conversation-or lack thereof. I understand the Super Bowl being played in pristine conditions in warm climates or under a dome. But how many great memories of frigid championshipgames — battling the other team and the elements — have been forged through snow and wind chill in Foxborough and Green Bay and Chicago and Pittsburgh?

It stinks in person when you are there. But you surely will remember it 10 years later. And it’s great theater on television. But a dome is … a dome. Especially when only 17% of the crowd is yelling in full voice at a time (Detroit’s Ford Field for Super Bowl XL as an exception, of course).

One issue the NFL is dealing with — and not particularly well in recent years — is the in-stadium experience. Fans are watching on television because the NFL is the best product on all of TV. But they aren’t going to the stadium as much. Sports Business Journal ran a story last year discussing a slight (0.9%) increase in NFL attendance to end a three-year decline (not counting the pandemic season of 2020). But those numbers were inflated by two new stadiums in the league.

Sometimes even if the tickets are purchased, people stay home or are unable to re-sell. It’s expensive and time-consuming, the weather is a factor, the seat in front of the TV is always warm and there is never a line for the bathroom.

The league is running into a Yogi Berra “nobody ever goes there anymore because it’s too crowded” phenomenon. It somehow feels like going to an NFL game is becoming more of a hassle because of the crowds, even though the crowds aren’t as dense as they used to be.

But what keeps people buying season tickets and willing to go to games is the memories of the big contests. Being at Steelers-Ravens in the cold of the 2008 AFC Championship game is what makes you want to be there for Steelers-Falcons on a 35-degree rainy day late in November.

Taking those kinds of moments and sticking them in an antiseptic, neutral venue 800 miles from home may help the NFL’s bottom line, but it’ll hurt the product.

And does that bottom line really need much more help?