The NFL is going to take you inside the locker room starting next season — but only if you’re already inside the stadium.
Alarmed that it might have made the sport a little too convenient for fans to stay at home and watch on TV, the league has ordered all teams to install cameras in their locker rooms starting this fall.
Here’s the catch: Video from the team-controlled cameras only will be shown on scoreboards inside the stadiums and on the clubs’ respective mobile-phone apps.
“We will be offering unique content, as we already are doing with the video replays involving referees,” Eric Grubman, the NFL’s vice president of business operations, told the Associated Press. “I can see cameras in locker rooms or tunnels or coaches’ facilities before games.Fans want it, and clubs can do it.”
The locker-room video is part of a push by NFL commissioner Roger Goodell to combat stagnant attendance in recent years that the league suspects is being caused by the rise of cheap, high-definition TV, which for many fans has made watching games from home much more preferable than buying tickets.
As well as providing behind-the-scenes video, the league has ordered all replays be shown on the in-stadium scoreboards during reviews — not just the ones that might be favorable to the home teams.
Grubman said the league also is considering setting up video boards in the concourses and parking lots so fans can keep up with games going on elsewhere.
“Fans want to know what is going on around the league,” Grubman said. “They don’t want those areas to be a zone of less information, and it doesn’t need to be.”