Posted on 10/04/2016 10:20:02 AM PDT by 11th_VA
Research conducted on behalf of SportsBusiness Daily has found unprecedented double-digit audience declines for NFL games so far this season.
According to research firm CivicScience, NBC’s Sunday Night Football — the highest rated prime-time program for the last five years — has seen its average audience drop 10 percent so far this year after four games.
Viewership of the NFL’s widely dispersed Thursday night games has dropped 15 percent. And ESPN’s Monday Night Football is down 19 percent.
It’s not fringe science — culling Nielsen data, Sports Media Watch has the NFL’s ratings pretty much down across the board through the first four weeks of the regular season.
It’s hard to elicit panic from media executives just a quarter of the way through the NFL regular season, but the implications could be huge. Popularity of NFL programming has grown quickly as most other shows have seen their audience succumb to new consumption patterns. And the NFL now operates with impunity.
"You never like seeing a competitor getting a part of what you do, but such is the NFL,” CBS Corp. chief executive Moonves recently lamented to investors after the league made CBS share its Thursday night games with NBC and Twitter. “They’re the 800-pound gorilla, and when the NFL says 'jump,' you say, 'yes sir.’"
But the possible ramifications go beyond the NFL.
Not only did NBCU experience double-digit ratings declines for the Rio Olympics, Major League Baseball and NASCAR have all seen significant ratings drops, too. And the NCAA men’s basketball championship game experienced record low viewership.
“All these sports go through cycles,” said Artie Bulgrin, ESPN’s senior VP of global research and analytics, said to SportsBusiness Daily. “It’s impossible to suggest that there’s anything going wrong here, particularly in light of the fact that we are in a really odd year in terms of the protracted presidential race, which has captured the attention of Americans going back a year now. Plus, it’s an Olympic year, which clearly had an impact during the summer.”
For his part, Mike Mulvihill, Fox Sports’ senior vice president of programming and research, says sports ratings have dropped in previous presidential election cycles. Notably, cable news networks are experiencing double-digit ratings increases.
“I would really start with the election — I don’t think you have to look much deeper than that,” Mulvihill said. “Cable news has been up so much all year, going back to the earliest primary debates. So much of a share of attention has gone to the campaign, it seems like it has affected everything else.”
1) Agreed, along with a huge swathe of fatherless players whose only model for self-esteem is making fools of themselves on television. After X number of games and Y number of highlights you might think they would get over these juvenile antics but when they have no frame of reference they carry on.
2) Under Rozelle & Tagliabue, video games imitated football. Under Goodell, that formula is reversed. Combine this with the cancer that is fantasy football and the game has been subsumed by peripheral concerns.
3) Player movement. Good player? Good team? Championship? Expect a cash-in and a fire sale and a load of new faces you don’t care about on the team next year. The NFL, the owners and the NFLPA pat themselves on the back about their collective bargaining agreement but the constant shuffle of talent means, as one writer once said, you are ‘rooting for laundry.’
4) Commercials and interruptions. I watched a Super Bowl from the 70s recently. Each commercial break was 30 seconds (!).
Closer to the modern era, the Super Bowl was notable for the increased frequency and length of its ad breaks. That formula long ago afflicted the regular season with breaks of at least 1.5 min, often closer to 2 or 3. There is the ridiculous (as even the broadcasters admit) sequence of touchdown-commercial-kickoff-commercial.
We keep hearing that NFL games are highly-rated compared to other programming and that sports are somewhat protected against ratings attrition due to time-shifting ie people watching the game later or only bits and pieces. But is this really true in the age of cord-cutting, narrowcasting and people lost in their fog of digital devices?
If Netflix and Amazon video binge-watching is the new standard in television due in large part to the audience’s exasperation with 1 hr shows actually containing only 41 min of content (ie 1/3 ads), leagues and rightsholders are living in a fool’s paradise if they think the 2016-vintage viewer will abandon those objections for a football game. At best, the mute button is engaged during breaks. At worst, the users are flipping around the channels or kicking on the DVR to watch recorded programming - and they just might find something they prefer to watch there, thus abandoning the game.
5) People simply don’t have the money to watch in this ‘thriving’ Obama economy. No cable, no dish, no TV. Many of them sure as hell don’t have the money for financial products, vehicles or upscale purchases advertised, which means even when they are watching the ad buys are futile.
We used to hear the Business Cycle excuse coming from the mouths of CEOs who were about to be fired, too. I will admit that the Olympic Year impact hadn't occurred to me, principally because (1) football games that count don't start until September, and (2) the Olympics weren't really that big a deal fan-wise, which is a separate but equally disturbing topic if you happen to be an advertiser.
But it isn't Presidential politics that are hurting, at least directly. It's politics all right. At some point somebody is going to have to notice the elephant in the room instead of throwing a slip-cover over him and calling him furniture.
We go to a local bar or restaurant that has NFL Sunday Ticket and shows all the games!
All we have to do is buy a meal or beer for three hours!...........
You forgot:
6) The league takes a whizz on your many years of loyal support and fandom to extort billions of dollars from some local government to move your team to their city (i.e. the Rams).
We won’t be watching anymore NFL games. You MUST read this letter to the NFL Commissioner. I received it in an email and agree 100%:
Commissioner,
I’ve been a season pass holder at Yankee Stadium, Yale Bowl and Giants Stadium.
I missed the ‘90-’91 season because I was with a battalion of Marines
in Desert Storm. 14 of my wonderful Marines returned home with the
American Flag draped across their lifeless bodies. My last
conversation with one of them, Sgt Garrett Mongrella, was about how
our Giants were going to the Super Bowl. He never got to see it.
Many friends, Marines, and Special Forces Soldiers who worked with or
for me through the years returned home with the American Flag draped
over their coffins.
Now I watch multi-millionaire athletes who never did anything in their
lives but play a game, disrespect what brave Americans fought and died
for. They are essentially spitting in the faces and on the graves of
real men, men who have actually done something for this country beside
playing with a ball and believing they’re something special! They’re
not! My Marines and Soldiers were!
You are complicit in this!
You’ll fine players for large and small infractions but you lack the
moral courage and respect for our nation and the fallen to put an
immediate stop to this.
Yes, I know, it’s their 1st Amendment right to behave in such a
despicable manner. What would happen if they came out and disrespected
you or the refs publicly?
I observed a player getting a personal foul for twerking in the end
zone after scoring. I guess that’s much worse than disrespecting the
flag and our National Anthem. Hmmmmm, isn’t it his 1st Amendment right
to express himself like an idiot in the end zone?
Why is taunting not allowed yet taunting America is OK? You fine
players for wearing 9-11 commemorative shoes yet you allow scum on the
sidelines to sit, kneel or pump their pathetic fist in the air. They
are so deprived with their multi-million dollar contracts for playing
a freaking game! You condone it all by your refusal to act. You’re
just as bad and disgusting as they are. I hope Americans boycott any
sponsor who supports that rabble you call the NFL. I hope they turn
off the TV when any team that allowed this disrespect to occur,
without consequence, on the sidelines. I applaud those who have not.
Legends and heroes do NOT wear shoulder pads. They wear body armor and
carry rifles.
They make minimum wage and spend months and years away from their
families. They don’t do it for a few hours on Sunday. They do it 24/7
often with lead, not footballs, coming in their direction. They watch
their brothers carted off in pieces not on a gurney to get their knee
iced. They don’t even have ice! Many don’t have legs or arms.
Some wear blue and risk their lives daily on the streets of America.
They wear fire helmets and go upstairs into the fire rather than down
to safety. On 9-11, hundreds vanished. They are the heroes.
I hope that your high paid protesting pretty boys and you look in
that mirror when you shave tomorrow and see what you really are,
legends in your own minds. You need to hit the road and take those
worms with you!
Time to change the channel..
Col Jeffrey A Powers USMC-(ret)
(FROM DEMKICKER TO YOU, FORWARD THIS!)
What if Trump takes office and calls for a super bowl boycott? Lady gaga doesn’t do it for me. Her figure is like the laughable Miss Universe. You folks have struck a raw nerve.
That’s great!! Thanks for posting it!
Politics and football don’t mix!!!...I don’t give a rats ass what a player or game announcer’s political leanings are. This is the NFL Organizer’s fault! Listening to what some douche bag game announcer’s political opinions are is pure crap!
My TV has not been on a NFL game this year nor will it.
Im sure their advertisers are not happy. They base their commercial rates on past years viewers. Im sure they are screaming about rebates now.
I still have my USAA - but I should at least give ‘em a call
= = = = = = = = =
Likewise....
Guess they don’t realize that catering to the Military and sponsoring idiots that don’t respect the Flag etc may end up in a loss.
Same with HRC....EVERYTHING else aside, if ANYONE who ever served overseas, Military, State Dept, CIA, Peace Corps etc etc etc can forgive this administration for the complete ignoring of the Souls at Benghazi, )HRC in particular...Want the Job, take the hits when whoever screws up)..., then this country is in a whole lot more trouble than we can realize.
Normally I watch every game I can. This year I have only watched my Cowboys. Not one other game.
Have the refs flag the offending team(s) and assess 15 yards on their opening drive of each half.
No wonder...I work all week and on Sunday want to watch a football game. I don’t need to hear what some assholes political opinion is...
Boycott.
16 game season dilutes the quality of the regular season.
Throw in Kapernick, and a lot of us are voting with our remotes...click.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.