Why Are The NFL Ratings Down?

Sports  |  Marc-Antoine Leblanc 

This year the NFL, the biggest professional sports league in the world in terms of revenue by a wide margin, has seen its overall ratings go down by around 12%. While there are no reasons for the league to panic (primetime games still draw on average more than 20 million viewers), it is still a sizeable fall that needs to be studied. We will explore three reasons that could explain the falling ratings.

Colin Kaepernick’ National Anthem Protest

Professional athletes, especially NFL quarterbacks, possess a great platform in which they can make their voices heard. Recently, we have seen many athletes taking public political stances like Lebron James, the superstar NBA player of the Cleveland Cavaliers, publicly endorsing Hillary Clinton in the US elections. However, no athletes have been as scrutinized as Colin Kaepernick of the San Francisco 49ers. He said he chose not to stand during the national anthem because he does not believe in standing for a country that oppresses black people, and this very quickly became a national debate in the United States. Many players chose to do the same thing, and this drew criticism from many Americans and people from around the world. Many think that this is an insult to the veterans that have fought for his freedom, and, therefore, not standing during the national anthem is a sign of disrespect. We could think that this would attract viewers to watch the game as this is a free publicity for the NFL. Colin Kaepernick’s jersey was even the highest selling jersey at the beginning of the season. However, in a Rasmussen Poll made in early October, 32% of the respondent said they were less likely to watch the NFL because of his protest. A proof to this is that college football games are rising in ratings, meaning that the demand for football is not lower, but the NFL is less attractive for many, and the national anthem protest might be a reason why.

People Are Distracted

While the overall ratings are down, the number of unique viewers is actually up from last year. Through the first 43 games of the season, the NFL has reached 167.7 million unique viewers (this measures the number of people having watched at least one game), compared to a slightly lower 166.4 million last year. This further proves that the NFL’s problem is not demand for football, but rather another extern factor. While the number of unique viewers is going up, the average viewer has watched 9.0 games this year compared to 9.9 last year. This could mean that the average viewer is not as interested as before in the NFL, or simply is distracted by something else. Most experts tend towards the second option, citing the elections as a major distraction from the games. Indeed, this can be verified by looking at a poll conducted by CNBC in which close to 50% of the respondent stated the distraction of the elections as a factor on why they are watching less football. Furthermore, two presidential debates fell during the primetime games which could have had a major impact on the ratings of these two important games of the NFL season. It will now be interesting to see if the ratings go back to last year’s number now that the elections are behind us.

An Oversaturation of Games

In 2012, the NFL only had eight games on Thursdays before expanding it to the current format of 15 Thursday games. Dallas Mavericks owner, Mark Cuban, stated that the NFL was putting too many games: "When you've got a good thing and you get greedy, it always, always, always, always, always turns on you. That's rule No. 1 of business." However, this statement could be wrong since last year saw breaking records of viewership for the majority of the season. So could the average NFL fan have got used and bored of these games? Also, unluckily for the league, these games were victims of injuries or had below expectations teams playing against each other. For example, the New England Patriots played on Thursday without suspended superstar Tom Brady, which is immediately less attractive for the average fan. Also, games that should have been exciting demonstrated very disappointing teams. For example, the New York Jets and the Arizona Cardinals playing against each other should have been a very interesting game; however, both teams had a very rough season start, making this game look like a game between two bad teams for the average fan. Again, this misfortune should not preoccupy the NFL since it should get back to normal next season. However, the NFL would have an interest in studying the possibility of putting fewer games on weekdays as fans seem to get tired of these games.

To conclude, the NFL should not panic since most of its problems seem to be due to unluckiness, or temporary factors such as the elections. However, the league should still try to find the other factors that might have had an impact on the falling ratings. The league has already stated that it is studying the possibility of reducing the number of commercials during a game, meaning it is acknowledging that it is facing a permanent issue. It will be interesting to see how this turns out: will the NFL change its approach to commercials and Thursday games, or is this simply due to a lack of time for the Americans? Time only will tell…