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With the addition of a playoff team in each conference and two more Wild Card games, the NFL called it "Super Wild Card Weekend," but when it came to television ratings it wasn't super at all. According to Sportico, ratings for the games were down 25% on Saturday compared to last year and 20% on Sunday. Ratings overall were down 7% in the regular season, so that is a big jump to upwards of 20 for the first weekend of the postseason. So, what are some possible reasons? It may have just been too much football. There were roughly 10...

"NBC’s Sunday Night Football showcased two of the best franchises in the NFL over the last decade, despite that, the ratings crashed by nearly 20 percent."

by Ron Kersten The Sunday Night Football clash between the Rams and the Cowboys was supposed to halt the ratings crash the NFL has experienced so far in the 2020 season. Instead, it was a complete disaster -- nearly equaling the devastating ratings crash the NBA playoffs suffered after embracing the Marxist BLM movement. According to DEADLINE Hollywood, ratings for NBC’s only weekly NFL game, were down a shocking 28%. Putting on the two teams with big national followings, SNF snared a 4.7 in early ratings among adults 18-49 and 14.81 million viewers last night. In numbers certain to change, that’s a fall...

With the coronavirus pandemic still raging across America, this year’s NFL season opener was as different as night and day in many ways from the 100th season kickoff in 2019. For one thing, as reigning Super Bowl champs the Kansas City Chiefs pummeled the Houston Texans 34-20, the ratings were down – a lot. In early numbers, the primetime NBC game scored a 5.2 among adults 18-49 and 16.4 million viewers between 8 – 11 PM ET. Now, those numbers for the 8:25 – 11:30 PM ET game itself will certainly be adjusted upward later, but right now that’s a...

The National Football League’s 2018 ad revenue has sharply declined due to the crashing television ratings the league suffered in 2016 and 2017, according to reports. The NFL’s TV ratings suffered a precipitous loss over the previous two seasons, with the 2016-2017 numbers down 10 percent. TV ad pricing is based on previous ratings periods, and so these declines seriously cut into the ad prices that the league could charge for the 2018 TV season. Because of the bad numbers from last season, ad revenue fell 19 percent in the first two months of the 2018 season, Bloomberg reported. “The...

The mantra for the current NFL champions in Philadelphia may be “fly Eagles, fly,” but last night on Sunday Night Football it was Super Bowl XLVII winners the Baltimore Ravens who hit high notes in tearing the Pittsburgh Steelers apart. In a 26-14 win on SNF, the Ravens are now 3-1 this season and the Keystone State team is near the bottom of the AFC North. The game in Pittsburgh on Sunday also saw another type of bottoming out in the ratings for the league and the NFL, as the primetime Week 4 matchup drew a 12.3/21 in metered-market results...

NBC Sunday Night Football‘s coverage of the Packers’ win over the Bears averaged about 19.4 million total viewers and a 6.6 demo rating in the fast nationals, down 11 and 17 percent from last season’s Sunday opener. Last year’s Cowboys/Bears match-up went on to report 24.4 million viewers and a 9.1 rating in finals. Over on ABC, Miss America (4.3 mil/0.7) dropped 20 and 26 percent from last year’s pageant. Elsewhere, CBS’ Big Brother (5.7 mil/1.5) rose 21 percent and two tenths from last Sunday, while Fox’s Rel sneak preview drew 5.1 million viewers and a 1.7 demo rating leading...

Winning!!!

According to SportsBusiness Daily, the ratings for all four games fell to the lowest level in nearly a decade.

According to Sports Media Watch, all four games were down substantially in overnight ratings from the comparable window last January, and several of them hit their lowest mark in years. Saturday afternoon’s Falcons-Eagles game on NBC drew a 17.4 overnight rating, down 5 percent from last year and 12 percent from 2016. It was the lowest for the early Saturday time slot since 2009. The Patriots-Jaguars matchup Sunday night on CBS was the lowest-rated game of the weekend, with a 16.6 overnight. That was down 9 percent from last year and 18 percent from 2016 and was also the worst...

An interesting result, as it raises a question that isn’t often asked about declining NFL ratings. How many people are boycotting because they *agree* with the player protests? SEE ALSO: Julian Assange may be stuck in the Ecuadorean embassy… forever To think, 33 percent of NFL fans missed out on one of the worst quarterbacked playoff games of all time this past Saturday in Jacksonville. If there’s any doubt that Kaepernick’s exile from the league is due partly, or even mostly, to politics rather than ability, go watch game film of Jags/Bills and ask if either team wouldn’t have benefited...

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell defended the league’s declining TV ratings Sunday, pointing out that 20 of the 30 highest-rated shows in 2017 were NFL games. Nielsen television ratings data backs up Goodell’s argument. NBC’s Sunday Night Football and ESPN’s Monday Night Football were the most-watched shows every week in each key male demographic. However, Nielsen’s numbers also show that NFL television ratings fell 9.7 percent during the 2017 regular season. In 2016, the ratings fell 8 percent. The average game in 2017 had 1.6 million fewer viewers than in 2016. “We always want ratings to go up, but we’re 37...

The weekly NFL matchup is still No. 1 on broadcast, but its losses outpace the league's overall TV showings. Sunday Night Football wrapped another fall at No. 1 on the broadcast networks — but the higher they are, the harder they fall. So the NBC series was among the hardest hit of the NFL's broadcast franchises during another season of ratings declines. The weekly telecast finished the season with an average 18.2 million viewers tuning in live and a 6.1 rating among adults 18-49. Both of those numbers represent double-digit drops from the previous year, with drops of 10 percent...

The embattled National Football League announced its decision to cancel this week’s edition of ‘Sunday Night Football’ on Tuesday; hoping to avoid a ratings bloodbath as a less-than-stellar line-up and New Year’s Eve festivities would have caused the NFL to reach embarrassing new lows. The league opted to call-off the game before announcing which teams were scheduled to compete, adding the match-up wouldn’t have playoff implications and would likely cost the already troubled organization millions of dollars. “We felt that both from a competitive standpoint and from a fan perspective, the most fair thing to do is to schedule all...

We’re quickly approaching New Years, which is traditionally a time for reflection on the events of the past year and plans for how to do better over the next twelve months. That’s particularly true for the NFL, which has seen both its television ratings and live attendance in many stadiums plunge precipitously in 2017. As the Washington Times reports this week, the leadership in the league is busy analyzing precisely what caused all of this and how they might address it in 2018.Your first guess might logically be that the National Anthem protests were a big driving factor. That was...

John Skipper resigned as president of ESPN and co-chairman of the Disney Media Networks on Monday. George Bodenheimer, ESPN's president from 1998-2011 and its executive chairman until May 2014, will take over as the acting chairman of the company for the next 90 days to help Disney chairman and chief executive officer Bob Iger find Skipper's replacement. [Snip] "I have struggled for many years with a substance addiction. I have decided that the most important thing I can do right now is to take care of my problem. "I have disclosed that decision to the company, and we mutually agreed...

As the NFL copes with a ratings slump and ESPN slashes $80 million in salaries after losing 15,000 subscribers a day in October, another major issue facing the league continued to play out in week 15 – terrible attendance. Ravens vs. Browns, Start 2nd Qtr While many blame the kneeing epidemic of unpatriotic players refusing to stand for the National Anthem – which started in the summer 2016 pre-season by former San Francisco 49ers QB Colin Kaepernick, others point to a boring season, cord cutters and broke millennials staying home. Either way, it’s ugly. Since most NFL attendance figures are...

The NFL's two-year TV downturn is taking a bite out of broadcast TV partners like Fox Sports that fork over billions for rights to live games. Fox Sports staffers in Los Angeles are bracing for a wave of possible budget cutbacks due to disappointing NFL advertising sales this season, sources tell Sporting News. Another important factor: With Team USA eliminated from the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, Fox can't count on soccer ad dollars next year to get well from an ad standpoint.

The Commissioner finally has a new contract. Per a source with knowledge of the situation, the NFL’s Compensation Committee has informed all owners that a new contract for Commissioner Roger Goodell has been executed.

Colin Kaepernick’s anti-anthem antics have hurt the NFL big-time—the league lost roughly a million regular-season viewers last year, compared to the 2013 and 2014 seasons. In total, this was about a 6 percent drop in viewership. But that’s nothing compared to this year’s carnage. In the wake of the latest round of player protests (and President Trump’s twitter assault), viewership is in free-fall. Forbes reports that this season’s television viewership is down by 3 million relative to the 2013 and 2014 seasons. And when accounting for the telecast’s average reach, and live ticket sales, the NFL’s viewership is down by...