Nielsen: Football ratings off 11 percent this year

This is supposed to be a little thing, only a few here and there not watching a very popular sport. But viewership is down 11%.

Nielsen said the games averaged 17.63 million viewers for the first three weeks of last season, and have dipped to 15.65 million this year. The Nielsen figures don’t include many of the Sunday afternoon games that are shown to a regional audience, but not a national one

NBC is owned by Comcast, ABC is owned by Disney and CNN is owned by Warner Brothers...Funny how the news and the entertainment (tv) is owned by the same corp. So the reasons for the "dip" in viewers will be interesting. Last year it was the elections, perhaps this year will be something else.

6 Corporations Control 90% Of The Media In America
Back in 1983, approximately 50 corporations controlled the vast majority of all news media in the United States.

www.businessinsider.com...
csglobe.com...
Seems we are being told this is a little deal, but it is actually a huge disaster in viewership. Is it the hurricanes? Is it the warmer weather in the mid west?
I am still watching the games I enjoy, and think that if the players want to tempt fate, go for it. I am a free speech person and very very little shocks of offends me. So take a knee while you can, because if this story has legs, it won't be long til you can't.



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a reply to: seasonal

Neilson ratings are garbage...

Unless they have changed lately. It is literally a voulentary snail mail survey. Not any actual digital tracking..

When did Disney buy Fox from Murdoch?

Did you mean ABC?

a reply to: Lysergic

Corrected. What is funny, not ha ha funny, is that the consolidation of the media continues. The big players are still shifting and buying a selling.

a reply to: seasonal

My guess it's due to the traumatic brain injury from repeated tackles. Just ask the former players that are in litigation. It's just like tobacco and cancer, eventually they won't be able to keep the lid on and it will become the next major topic and lead to the end of the NFL. At least with the barbaric tackling that is.

There's plenty of conjecture and evidence to show that the NFL has known for a long time that these injuries were a big problem, and buried it at every corner as best they could.

tl;dr

One possible reason for the decline in NFL viewership is that several grown assed men jumping on top of another man is NOT GOOD for the continued, and future proper functioning of the human body.

a reply to: hombero

One reason for the decline could be that viewers want to watch a game and not political commentary.

Does that mean that they might not see the projected 17+ BILLION dollars in revenue that was projected for them in 2017 ?

Does it mean that they will need even more subsidies from the federal government to 'stay afloat'?

a reply to: Bluntone22

I don't watch football, so I have to ask, just how much "political commentary" was there before trump started tweeting??

or are you including players silently kneeling as "political commentary??

originally posted by: Bluntone22
a reply to: hombero

One reason for the decline could be that viewers want to watch a game and not political commentary.

The decline in football viewing started last year, right when Colin Kapernick started this dumb kneeling controversy. The correlation is blindingly obvious. And if it wasn't before, it certainly was last Sunday, when fans booed the teams who kneeled, and jersey sales for that guy who didn't kneel soared. The NFL execs either have Hillary-esque levels of denial, or (more likely) they just don't have the guts to tell the football players to can the pointless political statements that are pissing off the fanbase.

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: Bluntone22

I don't watch football, so I have to ask, just how much "political commentary" was there before trump started tweeting??

or are you including players silently kneeling as "political commentary??

Google search 'Colin Kaepernick'.
This story goes way back before a POTUS tweet occurred.

It was in the news then and it was discussed a lot... in a political sense. As in.... Colin wasn't being hired because of stand on the issue that he created.

a reply to: hombero

Do some research and you discover that soccer players receive as many head injuries as football players do. That's another dirty little secret.

a reply to: dawnstar

Sitting during the anthem started before trump was in office. The commentary has been going on since then.
And to be honest, the people in the broadcast booth are the ones turning many viewers away.
If they just talked about the game things wouldn't be as annoying.

a reply to: seasonal

I am not sure the extent to which the TV ratings are an accurate measure of total "viewership". An Advertizing Executive on CNBC noted that starting next year they are going to measure digitl viewership on tablets, phones and computers. It is very possible that a lot of fans are now watching via digital media.

That said, the number of empty seats in the stadiums does tell a story and that story is demographic. The millenials don't do sports and generation Z is being encouraged to NOT play tackle football. Those trends, plus a lack of interest on part of the burgeoning Hispanic population that prefers soccer to US football spells a downturn for the sport that is unavoidable. And with the injuries, that is probably just as well. I would guess US football is going the way of heavy weight prize fighting, bull fighting and cock fighting.

a reply to: TonyS

Maybe.

Has anyone checked the college stands where these shenanigans aren't occurring?

a reply to: seasonal

NFL viewership decline is DIRECTLY related to Colin Krappforbrains and his disrespectful actions.

It was entertaining listening to the talking sports heads last year and this year who try to blame it on everything except Krappforbrains.

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: Bluntone22

I don't watch football, so I have to ask, just how much "political commentary" was there before trump started tweeting??

or are you including players silently kneeling as "political commentary??

Not really any. Kapernick did it first, but he isn't on a team right now. Until Trump said something no one was really even talking about that issue anymore.

a reply to: ketsuko

The USC/Texas game in Los Angeles had more attendance that the 2 pro games in Los Angeles the same weekend combined.

Not sure it that means anything but it happened.

originally posted by: mengele
with the precedent now set that only negro lovers can watch the nfl the ratings should continue to fall.
now we need the president to split the mlb like we once had.

Look at this larping left wing troll.

originally posted by: Krazysh0t

originally posted by: dawnstar
a reply to: Bluntone22

I don't watch football, so I have to ask, just how much "political commentary" was there before trump started tweeting??

or are you including players silently kneeling as "political commentary??

Not really any. Kapernick did it first, but he isn't on a team right now. Until Trump said something no one was really even talking about that issue anymore.

What?!
That's all that was being talked about.
Rumors flying that the team owners blackballed kapernick. The same owners kneeling with their teams mind you.