Football fans will tune in this season, but will they turn out?

That's what the NFL is asking as it heads into the 2010 season, with TV viewership continuing to reach new heights but the league bracing for a dip in attendance for a third consecutive year.

With season-ticket sales down 5 percent from last year, and a projected 1 to 2 percent decline in overall attendance on the horizon, league officials are predicting the lowest average attendance since 1998. The average attendance last season was 65,043.

That's not to say the game is losing popularity. On the contrary, viewership numbers are up across the board. Fox, NBC, ESPN and the NFL Network all had their most-watched NFL regular-season games in 2009, and CBS had its best season since 1993.

The sluggish economy is a big reason fans are staying home -- the average ticket price rose 3.9 percent to $74.99 last season, according to Team Market Report -- but millions of people also realize it's more comfortable and convenient to watch from their homes.

"We're still in a challenging environment," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said.

It's a situation that only stands to get worse for the league, as high-definition TVs become more affordable and with 3-D broadcasts just around the corner. What's more, the popularity of fantasy football means that millions of fans are interested not just in what's happening with their team, but what's going on all over the league -- something that's easier to monitor at home.

Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who last season opened a $1.2 billion stadium with a colossal video board stretching from one 20-yard line to the other, said the NFL "cannot become a studio game" and maintain its popularity.

"If you had a game on TV that didn't have the pageantry of the crowds and the stadiums, people see that," Jones said. "Think about if you were sitting at home watching a game with 15,000 people watching it [in the stadium]. Wouldn't be the same game."

Among the changes in stadiums around the league this season:

• The NFL's RedZone Channel, which drops in on games in crucial moments, will be featured on scoreboards before, during and after games.

• The league has changed its policy to allow more fan-generated noise during games. Teams are no longer banned from putting messages such as "Raise the Roof!" and "Pump It Up!" on scoreboards, or creating visual noise meters.

• Several stadiums will offer hand-held, in-game video devices that allow spectators to watch all games.

• A fan-conduct policy has been put in place to make games more of a family experience.

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