Free Republic

A few weekends ago, at a seersucker-in-November southern horse-racing event I attended with some lovely and friendly people who will nevertheless be the first ones taken out when the revolution comes, a family friend, an older white man, asked me what I, the one sportswriter he knew, thought of the kneeling NFL players. I told him that while I stand for the anthem myself, I supported the players’ right to express themselves politically and encouraged him to worry less about the kneeling and more about what the players were trying to say. He snorted and said he was done with...

Thanksgiving’s primetime clash between the Redskins and the Giants registered a 9.7 in metered markets, down 10 percent from last year.

First of all, hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and secondly, what was going on with the Washington Redskins and the New York Giants last night? Yes, the DC team ended up beating the Giants 20-10 but that was a terrible game on Thursday Night Football. A game that saw more national anthem protests as Giants defensive end Oliver Vernon took a knee during the Star Spangled Banner. Otherwise, were it not for some worthy moves by the Redskins’ QB Kirk Cousins, there wouldn’t have been a lot to see from NBC and the NFL on the holiday night. Which...

As Roger Goodell, Jerry Jones, and the NFL engage in an ugly internal fight over the future leadership of the NFL, TV partners at CBS, ESPN, Fox and NBC are staring at their own internal conflicts — namely a substantial decline in NFL ratings that is on pace to cost the four networks up to $500 million in lost revenue. Already several hundred million in lost revenue has been booked in 2017 and it has the league’s top executives and television partners scrambling to figure out what went wrong. How did a league that was setting ratings records in 2015...

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.

The National Football League continues to struggle with furious fans as player protests enter their second month, with ratings for the NFL’s flagship ‘Sunday Night Football’ down a staggering 25% from this time last week. According to Deadline Hollywood, television viewership for the troubled football association continued its free fall from previous weeks, with roughly one quarter fewer fans tuning in as the Detroit Lions faced off against the Pittsburgh Steelers. “With that, as the league and broadcasters have been losing ratings traction and snared in political controversy this season, last night’s Week 8 NFL game is down a hard...

As the NFL lurches toward another season of disappointing TV ratings, media executives once again are questioning whether there’s simply too much football. There seem to be dozens of reasons for the ratings downturn, from protests during the national anthem and the continued ratings strength of cable news networks to the concussion issue and weather-related problems. But one reason increasingly being discussed in media circles deals with NFL oversaturation, a topic that has irked network executives since the league launched NFL Network in 2003. So far this season, fans have been able to watch games on Thursday nights, Sunday mornings,...

At this rate, a whole bunch of millionaire thugs will be kneeling as the IRS prepossess their mansions. Last year, the NFL lost about a million regular-season viewers versus the 2013 and 2014 seasons. It represented about a 6% fall-off ― enough to be easily noticed and maybe even cause a little concern, but it could be written off as a one-year blip. Last year's seepage has turned into a major break in the dam. The league is now down about three million viewers per game from 2013 and 2014. When the specific teams appearing, the scope of the telecast...

Several NFL stadiums are nearly empty post kick-off as the National Anthem controversy rolls into week 7.

Ending a four-game losing streak for the Bay Area team, that 31-30 victory on Thursday Night Football also came as Raiders running back Marshawn Lynch was booted out of the game for bumping hard into a line judge. In the first NFL game since the league issued its non-rule on whether players would be made to stand for the national anthem or not on October 17, Lynch along with the Chiefs’ Ukeme Eligwe ignored the likes of Donald Trump and sat during the ‘Star Spangled Banner’ in protest. With all that drama and the competition of the MLB National League...

Through the first six weeks of the NFL season, total viewership of games is down 7.5 percent, compared with the first six weeks of 2016. An average of 15 million people watched games for the first six weeks this year, compared with 16.2 million people through Week 6 last season, according to metrics from Nielsen

It felt like a little bit of history was being made on Monday Night Football as the Tennessee Titans finally snapped their 11-game consecutive losses to the Indianapolis Colts last night. However, as the Titans stopped the streak going to a clean dozen with a 36-22 win and social media sparked with ESPN not showing the playing of the national anthem, another type of history was also being made. Last night’s primetime broadcast of the NFL game stumbled to a season low with a 6.1 in metered market results. In a season stained by overall ratings declines and political controversy,...

Declining NFL television ratings will lower CBS earnings, according to Credit Suisse. The firm cut its third-quarter EPS estimates by 5 percent, citing CBS' softer Sunday NFL ratings. The media company reports on Nov. 2. "We expect third-quarter network advertising to decline 3 percent (previously +1 percent), driven by soft ratings for both the summer schedule and for the start of the NFL season," wrote Credit Suisse analyst Omar Sheikh. "With only one of the three content licensing deals we expected for the second half announced in third quarter, we also expect content licensing revenue growth to be skewed to...

The NFL likely hoped for a return to normalcy for Week 6, especially after Commissioner Goodell’s call to “move past the anthem controversy,” and address the issue in detail at league meetings on Tuesday. Instead, what the NFL got was a return to what has become the “new normal” in the age of anthem protests: empty seats.

With the Minnesota Vikings and the Chicago Bears tied near the end of last night’s Monday Night Football, it looked for sure that the game was going into overtime. Then, even with injured quarterback Sam Bradford put on the field last night, the Vikings took control and won the game 20-17. That now finds Minnesota 3-2 in the fifth week of the 2017-2018 season. However, even with the much plugged world debut of the new Star Wars: The Last Jedi trailer at halftime, for the NFL and ESPN it was not such a great result in what is clearly a...

On a day that saw the Vice-President of the United States walk out of the Indianapolis Colts and San Francisco 49ers game because of players taking a knee during the national anthem, the Kansas City Chiefs had a very good night on Sunday Night Football. With their 42-34 victory over the Houston Texans in the Lone Star State, the Chiefs had the fifth win in a row and continued their unbeaten streak this season. However, with a 10.6/18 in metered market results, last night was not so stellar for NBC and the NFL. In what is a seemingly ever escalating...

Over just one month of player, coach and owner protests of the flag and National Anthem, the National Football League has gone from America's sport to the least liked of top professional and college sports, according to a new poll. From the end of August to the end of September, the favorable ratings for the NFL have dropped from 57 percent to 44 percent, and it has the highest unfavorable rating -- 40 percent -- of any big sport, according to the Winston Group survey provided exclusively to Secrets. Worse for football, which was already seeing lower TV ratings and...

The NFL allowed players to use the league’s national stage to disgrace the flag and the anthem. The NFL also chose to take the players side against the leader of the free world, when he rightfully called those players out. As a result, it appears the league may have done irreparable harm to its brand. The ratings for Monday Night Football on ESPN tanked hard in Week 4. According to Yahoo! Entertainment, “Coming off last week’s Dallas Cowboys’ 28-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals, where the ratings actually went up for MNF, last night’s game was not a victory for the Disney-owned...

CBS: The preliminary number for THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL at 3.4 looks bad compared to last year’s final 6.1 rating for the parallel week, but it’s more in line with the CBS premiere game in 2016, which had an early 3.8.

The National Football League is feeling the impact of the "Trump Effect."Ticket sales since he called on team owners to fire players who take a knee to protest the National Anthem have cratered. The online ticket reseller TickPick told Secrets that sales have dropped 17.9 percent, far more than the usual Week Three fall.From TickPick: 17.9 percent decrease in NFL orders this week compared to the previous week.Last year the drop was 10.8 percent in orders on Monday & Tuesday following Week Three games. "We have seen a massive decrease in NFL ticket purchases this past week in comparison to...