TV networks are running out of excuses for the dwindling popularity of the National Football League.
They blamed the election for ratings declines last year, and hurricanes for a soft week one in September. Protests during the national anthem, and President Donald Trump’s criticism of the league, have faded from the headlines.
Advertisers are starting to believe a different explanation: the viewers aren’t coming back. Audiences are down an average 7 percent from a year ago through the first eight weeks of the season, excluding last Monday. That’s on top of a decrease of about 8 percent last season that spurred numerous changes in the broadcasts, from shorter commercials to better matchups earlier in the year.
“There’s just not as many people watching TV the way they used to watch TV,” said Jeremy Carey, managing director of Optimum Sports, a sports marketing agency. “It’s going to be an issue for advertisers when they can’t reach a large-scale audience the way they have.”
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Media companies have spent billions of dollars on the right to air football games, which had been immune to the erosion of viewership for other TV programming. Audiences for TV networks have diminished for years as the growing popularity of online alternatives Netflix and YouTube and the availability of most shows on-demand have reduced the appeal of dramas and comedies. Live TV, like sports, was supposed to be immune, but that theory looks highly questionable now.
Ratings for the NFL suggest the same societal trends are now affecting the league, even if the declines aren’t as dramatic. The drop in game viewership ranges from 5 percent for NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” to 11 percent for the CBS Sunday package. “Monday Night Football,” on Disney’s ESPN, has attracted more fans this year than a year ago, but the numbers are still down from 2015.
pretty long article but an interesting read
so networks and advertisers are noticing some changes ... and there are an abundance of theories on why this is happening ... the most logical I think is the way people watch tv these days ... and the old formulas the NFL has been using to price their ads are not taking this into account ... and once advertisers start to feel they aren't getting a good return on their investment, they will seek other avenues
should make the next round of NFL negotiated tv rights interesting I think, though I'm not sure when that cycle comes up again
my theory on overall viewership being down is that maybe there are more football fans out there like me who are getting more and more turned off by bad games as a result of bad officiating and an idiotic dysfunctional replay system (the recent Zach Miller play only has enforced my views on this but I had these views prior to that event) ... plus, I think the NFL is simply over saturating things with their Thursday night and overseas games ... more opportunities to watch a watered down product is not a good thing in my view