Posted on 12/27/2017 9:05:43 AM PST by xzins
The embattled National Football League announced its decision to cancel this week’s edition of ‘Sunday Night Football’ on Tuesday; hoping to avoid a ratings bloodbath as a less-than-stellar line-up and New Year’s Eve festivities would have caused the NFL to reach embarrassing new lows.
The league opted to call-off the game before announcing which teams were scheduled to compete, adding the match-up wouldn’t have playoff implications and would likely cost the already troubled organization millions of dollars.
“We felt that both from a competitive standpoint and from a fan perspective, the most fair thing to do is to schedule all Week 17 games in either the 1 p.m. or 4:25 p.m. windows,” said a spokesperson for the NFL.
The National Football League is struggling to wrap up its disastrous 2017 season, with millions of fans tuning out or staying home following months of player protests.
Industry insiders predict the demonstrations have cost the NFL over $500 million.
President Trump thrust the issue into the national spotlight earlier this year, calling for a national boycott of the NFL until officials and owners clamp-down on their athletes “taking a knee” during the performance of the ‘Star-Spangled Banner.’
I might need to hire an interpreter.
I agree, I think the kneeling was the straw that broke a very tired camel’s back.
The general lack of morality inside the NFL is really off putting. NFL is dying from 1,000 cuts and now just took their own knife to their throats.
Does anyone know how TV ratings are calculated?
The bar across the street from my office, they have about 12 tv sets showing sports. But nobody is ever watching them!
Are these sports bar TV sets counted for viewership?
If so, the numbers are vastly inflated...
Noticed too that while Christmas shopping, nobody was buying the racks and racks of Seahawk football clothing etc. Perhaps after years of winning it’s died off, but the team has been in the playoff hunt...
Until three years ago I had watched every Super Bowl. From the very first one with Green Bay and Bart Starr until the last one I watched. I simply got sick of the crap of the NFL. This year made that a great decision back then for me. I am down to only a little baseball and EPL, German, Italy and Spanish soccer now. Otherwise, my sports is with the weed eater and lawn mower in the back yard.
You DO!!
1. Just find the video...
2. Start it...
3. Right click on mouse...
4. Select Copy video url from the popup menu...
5. Paste it on FR...
I’m going to be watching the big game between BLM vs Antifa. As soon as I master juggling flaming chainsaws while rollerskating.
I am sure some folks around here want to bet on the fantasy riots. :-(
This is very badly reported. No game was cancelled. Instead, all scheduled games will be played in the afternoon, and none at night.
I am surprised they even had one scheduled for New Years Eve night. they never used to.
Everyone take a breath. They are not cancelling it because of “ratings” or protests or anything else. The reason they are doing this is to ensure that the games this weekend are meaningful, because there have been a lot of clinkers this year. Teams are still in the playoff hunt, and what they are trying to avoid is one team either making/not making the playoffs in an earlier game, and therefore making the later games meaningless. In the NFC, NO (curr no 4 seed) vs TB, Carolina (curr no 5 seed) vs Atl (curr no 6 seed), Sea (curr no 7 seed) vs AZ, all have implications on who will win the NFC-S, who will be in the playoffs, and which seed they will be, so they will all be at the same time. If any one of those games was earlier than the others, then the other teams may figure they don’t have to play their starters because the outcome is meaningless. You take all the contenders games out, and what ... you have 2 teams who’s season is already over playing in Sunday Night Football? Yeah, that will be a good ratings boost </sarc>
Now to call off the rest of the season.
LOL
Usually yes, but the Eagles have clenched, and the Cowboys are out, so it would likely be a dud.
I was a tad surprised to see empty seats for the Dallas-Seahawks game.
I thought the Cowboys always sell out.
I'd think the NFL could move a game to sunday night if it had some kind of playoff implication.
I don't care enough to find out what teams that might apply to though.
ping!
Good riddance IMO but I never watched it anyway.
70 of which didn’t go to the game. :)
Merchandise licensed by the NFL would be the easiest way for us to know exactly how the protests have impacted the league. They have their own website selling the stuff as well.
But none of that info has been made public. Just seen some mom and pop stores that say they’re “suffering” because of the protests. Sure there are actual numbers they have and aren’t sharing.
CNN has a story up right now about the low ratings being due to a “number of factors”: Presidential election, bad matchups, overly long games, instant replay, Twitter spoiling outcomes, DVRing, and didn’t mention the boycott.
At a restaurant a couple weeks ago I was forced to watch a game on a big screen (part of one). The TV producers now stay very tight with shots of the field. You NEVER see the stands unless it’s in the background of a punt or kickoff. When the cameras go up you can see tons of empty seats. This was a Ravens game, too, and they aren’t a cellar-dwelling team.
But they don’t care. Just as no network has mimicked Fox by installing conservative pundits, the NFL doesn’t care about the bottom line. As long as their buddies at the New York cocktail parties applaud them for turning the League into a SJW ‘f*** you’ to middle America, they’re okay with it.
https://youtu.be/3DPKf7y1F-Q
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