Vox Day highlighted the simple fact that not only is the decline in NFL ratings continuing, but it is accelerating.
Take a look at the year-over-year comparisons to key games during week 11 involving elite franchises in the playoff hunt:
- Thursday Night Football: TEN-PIT -36%
- Early Doubleheader: KC-NYG -39%
- Late Doubleheader: NE-OAK -22%
This has huge implications for NFL advertisers:
It’s already being estimated that NFL advertisers have lost over $500 million due to the ratings decline, and that is when they were in the 20 percent year-on-year range.
Vox ties the NFL’s decline to SJW infestation of the league. While I don’t necessarily disagree with it, in many ways the NFL’s current problems come down to one factor.
For far too long, the NFL took its success, and its fans, for granted.
Rather than finding a franchise for Los Angeles after the Rams and Raiders left in 1994, the NFL 1) used LA as a negotiating chip so that team owners could strong-arm cities into using taxpayer funds to build bloated stadiums, and 2) played regular season games in London and Mexico City, while dangling the possibility of setting up teams in those cities. In the name of safety, the NFL diluted the rule book by increasing penalties on supposedly questionable hits by defenders, putting them in near-impossible situations when trying to play a game that should be simple. Meanwhile, playing games on Thursdays actually increases the risk of injury for players. Further, Roger Goodell has put the league in a terrible negotiating position by how it handled concussions.
Add in the SJW infestation, best exemplified by players kneeling during the national anthem*, et voila, the NFL’s popularity is imploding.
I don’t know how the NFL is going to turn this around. But I have to confess feeling somewhat satisfied that this far-too-smug of a league is being brought down a notch or two.
*While it is certainly obnoxious that the Defense Department has subsidized displays of patriotism during the national anthem,
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