Too many people still watching the millionaire thugs.
Advertisers will make a combination of changes. Some will pull NFL ads, and some will demand lower payments for ads no longer reaching previous numbers of viewers. Either way it will be less revenue going to the NFL.
I think the cable channels may also be noticing viewers like my brother. He does not turn to the channel showing an NFL game until at least ten minutes into the game - skipping any opening ceremonies, and the political antics going on with them. That can affect viewership of some ads placed at the beginning of the show.
I was an early adopter. I cut off the NFL after the handling of the Ray Rice Elevator Punch fiasco. I can tell you, at first you miss the excitement, particularly if you’re a fantasy football player, but over time, it gets better. Now, when I see a game on in a bar, it’s like watching something completely foreign to me.
Interesting to see that the NFL had already lost viewership before DJT tweeted out in Week 3.
The fans did not need to be told by DJT to tune out. They figured that out all by themselves.
If anything, all DJT did was lock in the low numbers by stating the issue clearly. Surely the league hoped to have a “new normal” kind of response, where people would just forget about the protests and resume their previous viewing habits. But once DJT framed the issue clearly, this was no longer possible.
in-person attendance down 100,000 from the start of the season:
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/years/2017/attendance.htm
There are a variety of ways, in which businesses judge whether they’re having a successful business day. However, if you’re losing over 15,000 customers a day, that is generally frowned upon.
No doubt, there are many frowns being worn on the faces of ESPN executives after reviewing the October Cable Coverage Estimates. ESPN lost over 15,000 subscribers for every day ending in “y,” during the month of October.
To put that into perspective, that’s the equivalent of losing Sacramento, California, the 35th largest city in the country, in a month. While many would welcome the loss of Sacramento, for a variety of reasons, when discussing losing a city of that size in a ratings context, it’s horrifying.
Excerpt:http://www.breitbart.com/sports/2017/10/31/espn-lost-480000-subscribers-october/
Week 2 is below 1, and 3 is below 2.
Then the viewership pops up (week 4), but it is lower than week 1. Week 5 is lower than 4, and week 6 is lower than 5.
Week 7 pops up...but is is lower than week 4. And the downward trend continues.
The NFL will never be what it was, but it is not going to capitulate or disappear.
Deal with it. Baseball dealt with declining viewers just fine.
The NFL will never be what it was. Millennials prefer fantasy leagues anyway.
2015: 9 of first 10 weeks above 100M viewers
2017: 1 of first 10 weeks above 100M viewers
Hard to ignore a change like that in two years...
I do have a question, how do they factor in people streaming the games on their phone/computer?
Colin cancer has spread throughout the NFL. It’s terminal.