Posted on 10/14/2017 2:30:55 PM PDT by 11th_VA
The protests by NFL players during the National Anthem have been hurting the league's television ratings since last year.
This season, as the protests have continued, the television ratings and ramifications for broadcasters have worsened.
More bad news for the NFL: an analyst for Credit Suisse yesterday downgraded his price and earnings per share targets for 21st Century Fox in part due to NFL ratings that are coming in below market expectations.
"We trim our 2018/19 EPS forecasts … ahead of Q1 earnings," analyst Omar Sheikh wrote in a note to clients Thursday. "The key near term headwinds are soft NFL ratings and the risk that the Sky transaction is blocked by UK regulators."
The downgrade comes at a time when the NFL is negotiating two important distribution deals that end after this season: Verizon's $250 million a year streaming agreement and the $450 million a year Thursday Night Football deal for games shared by CBS and NBC.
Through five weeks, the league's ratings are substantially lower this season, according to Nielsen data obtained by Sporting News.:
The league's average TV audience through Week 5 of the 2017 season dropped 7% vs. the same period of the 2016 season, and the average game audiences are down 18% compared to the first five weeks of the 2015 season. The NFL's average TV audience (including Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night games) slid to 15.156 million viewers through Week 5 of the 2017 season, down 7.42% from an average of 16.371 million viewers through the same period of the 2016 season, and 18% lower from the first five weeks of the 2015 season.
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Further, the NFL would be politically incorrect to blame it on the players, therefore since they will not identify the problem, they can no enact a solution.
So they are in a doubly and perhaps triply weak negotiating position.
It was not only the right thing for Trump to do bring this zit to a head and squeeze it, but he must be secretly loooooooving the revenge factor for the NJ generals.
>>It sounds like our boycott is working. I’m hoping our side can hold out longer than they can.<<
My Sundays (all day) and Monday nights have opened up wonderfully. I probably won’t go back to spending them watching the NFL.
With me they lost a lifetime viewer forever.
Don't hold your breath. Conservatives are almost always ineffective at boycotting. It's like herding cats.
Watch the NFL thread Sundays here on this forum....some fans can't even give up a lousy couple games this season to pitch into the effort to keep the polls and PR in our favor during this important month.
When liberals boycott, man...they mean business.
I wonder what folks think when they read the weekly seemingly-approving NFL thread here on the "Premier Conservative News Forum in the Country" ???
Well, to each his own, I guess.
Leni
More winning!!!
If they could just figure out why ..... hmmmm ....
Bingo. In a very real sense, it is a demonstration of the current level our nation's desire/willingness to preserve a fundamental American principle.
Some observers acknowledge we now have a butt-kicking president who is intent on MAGA, but they wonder what kind of support he has and how quickly that support will make itself known.
It seems quite important that we show them. The longer the NFL management holds out the faster, IMO, they can go straight to hell.
Time for a new football league. If the NFL tries to throw up barriers to competition, the Federal government should review those barriers from an anti-trust perspective.
I haven’t seen that thread for a while ... I was hoping it was banned
It’s time for the owners to “pay” for their own stadiums and not the taxpayers!!
Then these “disrespectful, ungrateful, thug Kneelers” won’t be making multi-millios dollar contracts and they can return to lesser salaries and living in the real world.
I don't approve of "banning" the threads. Let it run every week for all to see who, what, where, when and WHY !
Leni
Further, the NFL would be politically incorrect to blame it on the players,...
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The players are like enlisted personnel or other lower level employees. Without leadership, they go bad.
This is a leadership fail.
Goodell and the entire executive level of the NFL is the source of this crap.
As long as any one of those spineless scumbags remain in place, the problems will just fester.
Put real leadership in control and the players will drop the stupidity in a heartbeat... after the worst of them are cut out of the herd.
But if you read to the end the writer thinks the NFL will get a raise from the networks, not a cut.
Not a new NFL
Just bring back the NFL that made the game great in the first place.
NFL Films The power and the glory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qmJhSF86H9U&t=5s
When ticket prices are $4, Goodell will ask the players what should the NFL do to improve game attendance? Will he get gibberish about issues of social justice, or something else, or a meaningless and incomprehensible listing of potential NFL actions?
I am looking forward to $5 tickets to professional football games where the players are interesting in playing football. Then we can reset.
Right now I am watching hockey.
I quit watching the Indianapolis horses asses.
You can't argue with facts. Viewership is down. I think it'd be stupid to argue that the protests have nothing to do with the decline.
But the question remains: what is the end-game of the boycott?
We can look at The Packers' financial statements to get a sense for where the money goes. The Packers pulled in $441MM (million ) in revenue, while expenses rose to $371MM resulting in Net Income of $73MM. Of those expenses, about $156MM come from players.
So, if revenues decline, does anyone really think they'll take it out on the players? Most of them are under contract, so in the short-run they won't feel the pinch.
I'm not saying the boycott shouldn't continue. The essence of the boycott is "if you all support Kaepernick taking a knee because he hates the police, when we'll ignore you." Thus, the boycott has a noble underpinning. Anything that results in strengthening of the family and fathers and mothers spending more time with children and less time on panem et circenses is a net positive for society.
But, net-net-net, if revenues decline, the cuts will come in the middle offices and trickled down to concessions employees, parking attendants, etc. The players that many people seem to abhor, will largely remain unimpacted (aside from some loss of endorsements etc.).
:) Ha Ha! All of the teams are Kapernicking themselves. LOOSERVILLE FUTURE BURGER FLIPPERS, apologies to good burger flippers.
“...”I quit watching the Black Pampers playing for the Denver Donkeys. I have better things to do. They can become burger flippers for all I care”
Same goes for the Detroit Meows.”
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Ditto for the Pittsburgh Kneelers.
BOYCOTT THE NFL!!!!!!
The players are not the real problem. They’re young Black guys who have been immersed in Liberal politics. It’s the league brass and the owners who are to blame for allowing them to alienate the fans with these protests.
We have an epidemic of a lack of authority throughout society. The adults are afraid of the children. And the adults are the ones who are to blame.
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