*By Conor White*
Though last season's 10 percent [drop in ratings](https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanberr/2018/08/28/the-nfls-ratings-probably-will-continue-to-decline/#75a6e8dc6666) has stirred questions about the appeal of football broadcasts in the streaming age, the NFL's COO thinks the internet is a useful learning tool for marketing her league.
"What Netflix and Google taught us is that ubiquity and ease are key," the league's chief operating officer Maryann Turcke said in an interview on Cheddar.
"When I think about my own kids, I have a 23-year-old and an 18-year-old; if they can't find something \[quickly\], they're going to stop looking."
Some leagues might be fazed by the rapid rise of eSports, but in certain ways the NFL, which kicks off its season on September 6, has been part of the movement from the beginning ー largely thanks to the success of the Madden franchise of games.
While last weekend's [deadly attack](https://cheddar.com/videos/social-media-livestreams-face-scrutiny-after-jacksonville-shooting) at a qualifying event for the Madden 19 Championship raised concerns over safety at these tournaments, Turcke said the league is poised to take the next step and embrace the eSports craze.
"What Madden did is they brought football into gaming," Turcke said. "I think we need to bring gaming to the broadcast."
"There's a secret sauce out there somewhere, that someone's going to figure out, around how to gamify what we do." she added.
As for the concern about ratings, the NFL's chief media and business officer Brian Rolapp thinks the issue is being exaggerated.
"I think a lot of other people are more worried than we are," he told Cheddar.
While ratings for NFL games are down, [they're also down for everyone else](https://deadspin.com/for-the-last-time-nfl-ratings-are-not-down-theyre-up-1827378925) ー and not just in sports. NBC and CBS both saw viewership fall by 19 percent in 2017, and broadcast networks overall lost 16 percent of their viewers.
"The television industry and media industry is going through some huge changes," Rolapp said. "No one's immune to that."
And live sports ー the NFL, in particular ー are in a better position than most to attract viewers and actually may become more valuable to advertisers in the long run, Rolapp said.
"There is a premium in this marketplace that will continue for any content that can aggregate large number of audiences at one time," Rolapp said. "They are very few, and they are becoming fewer. Live events works, sports works, and the NFL specifically works."
"Whenever you have a product that aggregates audiences, people will find that valuable."
The 2018-19 NFL season officially starts Thursday, when the Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles take on the Atlanta Falcons.
For full interview [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/nfl-gears-up-for-another-season).
FightCamp is a new fitness company that streams boxing classes from top instructors direct to consumers. The classes can be tailored to the needs of boxers at all levels of expertise ー from newbies to punching pros said co-founder Tommy Duquette.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Jan. 25, 2019.
The New York Knicks and its jersey sponsor, the website-building platform Squarespace, are doling out assists to four local businesses as part of the second annual "Make It Awards." "Partnering with Squarespace to help those entrepreneurs get their businesses to the next level was something we were very interested in doing and it's been a major hit," said MSG Sports' senior vice president of business operations, Kristin Bernert, in an interview on Cheddar.
The Delaware Blue Coats will make their debut Wednesday night at the brand new Philadelphia 76ers Fieldhouse in Wilmington, Del., and the team will share the spotlight with an arena that boasts five stories, can seat 2,500 fans, and includes three NBA-regulation basketball courts. The flashy new arena was designed to promote youth sports in the state of Delaware and the greater Philadelphia region. "It's all geared towards youth," Chris Heck, the president of the Philadelphia 76ers, told Cheddar.
The NBA is transparent about its approval of legalized, regulated sports betting ー but the league is also clearly communicating that it wants a fair share of the money wagered on its games. "It's our view that if state governments are going to be authorizing private entities, in most cases casinos, to generate significant revenue ー billions of dollars of revenue ー off of the NBA competitions, that the NBA participate in some way," said the NBA's head of fantasy and gaming Scott Kaufman-Ross.
Former Green Bay Packer Ahman Green is a four time Pro Bowler, but he's also an avid gamer. When it comes to Halo he's just another fan that looks up to professionals like Proximitty and LethuL for help with his improving his skills.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday Jan. 23, 2019.
If there's one person aside from the 800,000 unpaid federal workers who is hoping the government shutdown ends soon, it's Keisha Lance Bottoms. The mayor of Atlanta is less than two weeks away from hosting Super Bowl LIII, which is a logistical and security nightmare even when the city's airport *isn't* being slowed down by mass TSA sick-outs. "I'm extremely concerned," Bottoms said of the possibility that the shutdown may continue through Super Bowl weekend.
Cloud9 has been dubbed the most valuable esports company in the world by Forbes Magazine ー a title that is thanks, at least in part, to the organization's powerhouse VP of marketing, Eunice Chen. Chen is an esports vet who has worked for industry stalwart Riot Games and even runs her own tournament production company, Heroeshype. In an interview with Cheddar Sports, she said, "there are always different ways we can break into new markets in esports and beyond."
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019.
