It is interesting that in a time when the entire population was under house arrest, televised sports sank like a rock.
Just a guess, but perhaps Americans don’t care to subsidize people who hate them.
It turned out that fans don't want to be lectured to by ignorant pampered jocks whose salaries the fans indirectly pay. Jocks like NBA players who criticize the US as racist, chauvinistic and evil while turning a blind eye to China and all the abuses routinely carried out there. It is easy to simply shut them off.
It was more simple than that.
When the entire population was under house arrest in 2020, the sports leagues that were "in season" at the time -- namely basketball, hockey and baseball -- all shut down for months. People found other things to do while they were locked down.
Discretionary entertainment is a very fleeting thing. Once you lose the attention of your customers, it's very hard to get it back.
The "woke" stupidity by these sports leagues only made things worse. I'm the biggest hockey fan you'll ever meet ... and I haven't watched a hockey game on TV since early 2020.
I said at the outset, every major sports league has a tremendous opportunity be the hero and go America, gaining legions of fans (see 2001 World Series, GWB first pitch). Nearly every one of them said, “Nah. We’d rather be ‘woke’.”