Posted on 10/21/2016 6:13:06 PM PDT by 11th_VA
In this wacky, topsy-turvy biz we call television, the one constant has been the NFL. It brings in the viewers and helps bring them back for other programming. The ad dollars pile up at a predictable rate.
Until this season.
From the start, the NFL and its TV distributors have noticed the ratings have not been measuring up to last season.
On Wednesday, Nielsen ratings cruncher Brian Wieser of Pivotal Research Group published a report that concludes that viewership among adults 18-49, live plus same day, is off 15.1%.
The big question is why. And it's just not the NFL and TV suits who are trying to answer it. It's been the subject on sports radio and among sports columnists, bloggers and everyday fans.
Two execs with much to gain or lose from the NFL on TV, CBS CEO Les Moonves and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, this week acknowledged publicly that there is a problem, but offered little on the cause, let alone a solution.
“Have they sliced it and diced it too much? Is there too much product out there?” Moonves asked at a Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in San Francisco. “I really don’t know.”
Theories for the trouble abound. Here are several:
(Snip bogus theories)
The real question is what is different this season that would cause such a sudden and significant loss of viewership.
I would trace it to the Trump phenomenon. Whether you like him or not, the man is leading a revolution — primarily of white working class males — against "the establishment," of which the NFL is an entertainment cornerstone.
With its $20+ parking and $10+ beers, seat licenses and high prices for bad seats, the NFL long ago moved up in class, leaving its original blue collar backers far behind so it can rub elbows with corporate America.
Goodell this week said San Francisco 49er Colin Kaepernick's protesting of police violence against African-Americans by not standing for the national anthem is not a significant factor in the declining ratings.
Don't believe it. A Quinnipiac University poll released Oct. 11 poll found that 63% of white adults disapprove of the protest. Only 30% favor it.
Trump himself has blasted Kaepernick, reaching back to the 1960s for his response. The USA, he said, love it or leave it.
It is not unreasonable to presume that some percentage of Trump's millions of followers have decided to boycott the NFL on TV.
Wieser's research reinforces this theory. The loss of viewership (again adults 18-49, live-plus-same-day), it says, is far from uniform across class and race.
While viewership dropped 14.1% in homes with more than $75,000 in annual income, it was down a whopping 28% in homes with less than $75,000.
In homes with a black head of household, the decline was 9.7% compared to 15.2% with a white head of household.
All broadcasters have a stake in seeing the NFL return to full health. On a live-plus-three-day basis, the Wieser research finds, NFL games accounted for 8.6% of all TV viewing (cable and satellite included) during the first five weeks of the football season. That a huge percentage relative to the number of TV hours the NFL actually fills.
If the viewership doesn't rebound after political passions cool and playoff races heat up in November and December, the NFL and their TV partners will have a real problem on their hands, one they cannot ignore.
Broadcasters should hope it isn't Trumpism. That's the one that might be toughest to fix.
Interesting, but what’s an ‘NFL’?
You forgot radio and TV sports broadcasters who are as big a bunch of cowards and left wing delusional fools as exist.
>> ####
I prefer the single hash. More legible when writing the present participle, or for that matter as an adjective such as #ing beautiful.
Also, why screw with the segment of your audience that doesn't have to fraudulently convert food stamps to get spending cash.
Yeah I used to think it was a big deal but then I realized they are scripting every one. There are very few announcers that can carry on an intelligent off the cuff discussion of football. What the woman have unmasked is how fake all the banter is. Americans like sincere and genuine. I remember Phyllis George when I was a kid she was beautiful and could talk football. Her interviews didn't grate on me like the present day crop of Phyllis George wannabes
It’s not about the GAME, anymore, and this is going right on down to the college level, fast and is accelerating.
Artificial turf = unNatural
Women reporters on men’s sports = unNatural
Women reporters in men’s lockers/dressing rooms = unNatural
Arenas with jumbo-trons = unNatural
Commercial TIME instead of Game TIME = Lying
300 lb. = UnNatural
Dome stadiums = Counterfeit, UnNatural for real football.
Replay Time, constant every play vs. Game TIME, up-close huddle, live player interactions between plays. = Counterfeit
Announcers vs. viewer freedom of thought. = UnNatural = harassment, intrusion law.
Destruction of Property Rights = Renting (mortgages) of vehicles advertisements = Mortgage = Mort=Death, Gage=Grip = exploitation.
Forced cable pay for viewing of tax supported college/university sports + professional stadiums. = illegal
Affordability ticket prices = Exploitation
The ECONOMY, affordability time available due to BodyMortgage Care Act.
=Anti-Game, lying
You neglected to mention the one that made me the maddest:
8. Not allowing the Dallas Cowboys to honor the five slain policemen.
Love your list! I would only add the ridiculous rules changes they have made in recent years, the fact that they won’t show cheerleaders but for a few seconds, and the endless, mindless commercials.
God bless you and thank you for your service!
I have been a fan of the 49ers since the year before Joe Montana came out of Notre Dame (I was 11 years old). I was with the team, cheering them on, through the good years, the Championship years, and the bad years.
As an old football dog, I miss the legacy ‘9ers, but still wish my team the best, no matter who is at the helm. Until this year. That has-been Suck-a-d**k, has ruined my ‘9ers, as well as snowflake head coach, front office, and NFL commissioner. For the first time as a football fan, this year, I have not watched one ‘9ers game, nor will I watch any NFL games.
I will not hold my breath that Goodell and/or the 49ers front office, will suddenly realize that the reason this year, more than other years, that so many of us are tuning out the NFL, is precisely because of these ‘protests’.
Not the 3+ hour games, not the over-priced tickets or merchandise, not the laughable reporting (in the booth or on the sidelines), not the horrible officiating and spastic/arbitrary/confusing league punishments of players (and not punishing players), not the Pink, and not even the thuggery of the League. As a fan, while I decried bad calls, bad reporting, thugs, I still watched, for victory, for entertainment, and for escape.
But this is the first year I can remember (and perhaps because it is a presidential election year, and we are more sensitive than ever to ‘politics’ in everything), that I am angry and disappointed that rank politics, racial divisiveness, and moral cowardice both of the 49ers and the NFL in general, have interfered with my football, and have tainted my beloved ‘9ers, perhaps forever.
Agreed. I haven’t watched or listened to a single down this year.
It is amazing how out of touch the Establishment is with reality.
simple..... Nigball don’t sell
I hear you.
Good. I hope there ratings continue to suck as they disrespect this country. I hope there are some pay cuts coming too.
Well said.
Their...
I think the author may have been referencing those changes in ticket prices over the decades as illustrating how the NFL has embraced the elite, and abandoned the middle and lower classes that support professional sports via TV watching more so than any other segments of society by sheer numbers alone.
So for years, I had a tradition of hosting NFL games at my home on the large screen, where the beers are much cheaper and the food options much better! When I ditched cable a few years back, I'd spend Sunday afternoons at Buffalo Wild Wings or some other sports bar, downing pounds of chicken wings and gallons of beer surrounded by big screens. I actually got to like that routine.
But this year, I have not seen a second of NFL football. The protests against the national anthem have definitely been a large part of the reason why but also I'm sick of other facets of NFL football. The suspension of Tom Brady this year for that silly "under inflation of footballs" controversy is another factor. Another factor is the increasing number of thugs, some felons, that are represented on teams these days. It's quickly going the way of NBA basketball, which I stopped watching entirely back in the 1990s.
I believe it is the cumulative impact, of just too much “black.”
Too much Obama, too much blacks in cabinet posts, too much black criminals blaming cops, too much Colon K.
So people have “blacked out” their screens.
I have an open mind and won't yet blame all of the ratings decline on BLM. But the utter refusal by ESPN toadies and Roger Goodell to even admit the possibility that some correlation exists tells me that they are full of crap.
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