Yeah sure, bad football is part of it - on any given Sunday, half the games are dogs. But that’s always been there, so it would’ve shown up before now if that was the real reason.
But the 20% decline over the last 2 years is something new for the NFL. And there’s definitely a new sports-media meme desperately being promoted now, that this is NOT due to the protests, it’s, uh, because of “something else” ... like that compelling election campaign last year, or uh, uh, all those great TV shows on this season that are stealing viewers, or, uh ...
Whatever. Keep denying the obvious, you idiots.
Bottom line is NFL gets most of its money from TV, so 20% fewer viewers = a 20% pay cut. For a player making $5 million a year, that’s a loss of $1 million per year.
You know how the players endlessly complain when they get hit with “just” a $15,000 or $20,000 fine for excessive celebrations? Watch the reactions when the SOB’s realize they’ll have to take multi-million-dollar pay cuts.
Instant Karma!!
I agree partly with you. The bad football has always been there, but I believe even more bad quarterbacking, bad officiating, long and tedious replays to determine miniscule rule infractions and consecutive commercial time-outs all are contributing to the fans watching less and less of the NFL.
But the author is in definite denial. All of the above has pushed most fans to the brink, and the anthem protests have pushed many, many fans, myself included, over the brink. In other words, when we are protesting and boycotting the anthem protests, the bad football does not tempt us to go back. We can feel secure that our protest is the right thing to do and we’re sure we really aren’t missing much.
It HAS been going on for a long time. Someone posted a chart here last week showing Monday Night Football ratings since 1970. Ratings had ALREADY dropped by 50% between 1985 and 2012. Now, they have dropped by 50% AGAIN.
The quality of play in the NFL is crap. They have WAY too many teams. There are SO MANY penalties, and they're called so unevenly, you'd have to be blind to not think the games are not rigged.
Without a doubt, this kneeling fiasco is speeding up the process, but... the decline of the NFL has been on-going for quite a long time. In fact, I think there is a broader de-coupling of huge money from many sports.... not just football. There was a "sports bubble".... and, it's deflating.