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Nielsen: Football ratings off 11 percent this year

Common Sense 1 said:
Is this the start of fans (customers) leaving the NFL because of the taking a
knee nonsense? The NFL has made a major mistake in allowing this to occur.
They are going to get hit hard in the pocket book.

What do you think? Will this issue help or hurt the NFL?


Nielsen: Football ratings off 11 percent this year

https://apnews.com/bf595941ba9640e9ab32e474459f529c/Nielsen:-Football-ratings-off-11-percent-this-year

NEW YORK (AP) — Through three weeks, viewership for national telecasts of NFL games is down 11 percent this season compared to 2016, the Nielsen company said on Tuesday.

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.

The NFL ratings are in focus because of President Donald Trump’s suggestion that viewers are turned off by a protest against police brutality that began with quarterback Colin Kaepernick refusing to stand for the national anthem. The protests spread rapidly this past weekend following the president’s criticism of people involved.
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I really hope it hurts them for no reason other than because I can't think it bad for people to pull themselves away from the utter stupid of wasting a whole day watching grown men in tights and shoulder pads play with balls and instead maybe focus the little brain power they have on something even remotely productive and meaningful.
 
Born Free said:
The NFL has all these rules and regulations what a player can and cannot do on the playing field, except show respect for our country.
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Actually they do. Page 62 of the nfl operations manual. They just choose to not enforce the rules sometimes.

Interestingly they do enforce fines against support of prayer, support of dead police officers, support of 911 victims and so on.

Quite selective.
 
jmotivator said:
That isn't actually a "why". Now you will need to explain "why" viewership is down by age group.

And if you make a connection to a change in viewership in young people that has nothing to do with the politicization of the sport you still have to accept the fact that taking positions that drive the older fan base away is idiotic.

Also interesting is the growing amount of research that is showing that that 12-17 age group is showing signs of being the most conservative generation since the 1950s.
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I could be mistaken, but I believe you missed what the chart was displaying. It wasn't displaying NFL viewership, but all TV viewership. The trend towards more and more people consuming less and less traditional TV sources has been seen for years and well reported.
 
Slyfox696 said:
I could be mistaken, but I believe you missed what the chart was displaying. It wasn't displaying NFL viewership, but all TV viewership. The trend towards more and more people consuming less and less traditional TV sources has been seen for years and well reported.
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Correct. And once the cord has been cut, professional sports is one of the first thing that viewers can no longer get access to easily/cheaply.
 
Born Free said:
The NFL has all these rules and regulations what a player can and cannot do on the playing field, except show respect for our country.
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Actually I just learned yesterday that NFL contracts do cover behavior during the NA. This is all up to the NFL and the team owners.
 
Slyfox696 said:
I could be mistaken, but I believe you missed what the chart was displaying. It wasn't displaying NFL viewership, but all TV viewership. The trend towards more and more people consuming less and less traditional TV sources has been seen for years and well reported.
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Actually you are right. My mistake.

But then I don't see that argument to be all that compelling either. You'd have to assume that the reduction of TV viewership is evenly distributed, rater than the loss coming from products that are readily available online. I wouldn't think that the younger NFL fans would stop watching the NFL because it isn't available from a streaming service. The loss in TV viewership would likely come from products that are freely available online.

And then, again, the question still remains unanswered by the statistic of WHY young people would choose to stop watching the NFL... at best it only hints that they are.
 
akyron said:
Theres still some fun left in baseball.

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Please baseball exciting? I was in a bar one time watching a hockey game on a small tv In a corner, the rest of the bar was watching the brewers. A guy came over and asked why I was watching hockey instead of baseball. I said because I had already had a knap that day.

Hockey is the coolest game on ice!!!
 
jmotivator said:
And then, again, the question still remains unanswered by the statistic of WHY young people would choose to stop watching the NFL... at best it only hints that they are.
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The games take like over 3 hours now, and almost 70% of that is commercials. Who wants to sit around watching commercials for 3 hours? NFL game lasts as long as baseball, and baseball was built around standing around, scratching your nuts.
 
My sense is that we will see if fans dislike what is happening will have more impact with sponsors than game tickets or even watching on TV. For example, if lets say Bud saw beer drinkers from this demo reducing consumption and more to lets can Coors (if they advertise less in the NFL), this would hurt the NFL's largest gravy train. Not a beer drinker so don't know how realistic the example is. But the point remains.

Lets remember that the customers of the NFL and the people who advertise on their games come from all groups in America. No business wants to anger 35% (low end) of their customers on something this controversial.

With these troubles and the CTE issue I see many turned off by the current NFL. Remember these are franchises worth billions each. Owners will look at the long term aspects, not only what happens week to week, but the long term consequenses.
 
Ikari said:
The games take like over 3 hours now, and almost 70% of that is commercials. Who wants to sit around watching commercials for 3 hours? NFL game lasts as long as baseball, and baseball was built around standing around, scratching your nuts.
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That time is meant to get a beer and make room for more.
 
jmotivator said:
Oh irony. You were the one claiming victory on a point nobody actually made.
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Yet again show me where I said what you claim in the previous post or go pound sand.
 
GDViking said:
Please baseball exciting? I was in a bar one time watching a hockey game on a small tv In a corner, the rest of the bar was watching the brewers. A guy came over and asked why I was watching hockey instead of baseball. I said because I had already had a knap that day.

Hockey is the coolest game on ice!!!
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Watch the video. It wasnt about baseball.
 
GDViking said:
That time is meant to get a beer and make room for more.
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spend two hours getting beer and pissing...well if I had to be getting beer each commercial break, I suppose I would have to piss rather heartily. Also...liver would likely be dead.
 
Ikari said:
The games take like over 3 hours now, and almost 70% of that is commercials. Who wants to sit around watching commercials for 3 hours? NFL game lasts as long as baseball, and baseball was built around standing around, scratching your nuts.
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I'm not swayed by that argument either. It has long been true that there is only about 12 minutes of action in any given football game.. but it was always the custom among friends and family to use the down time to discuss the game, strategy and tend to the grill and make a pit stop. The format seems perfect for a population riddled with ADD since it gives ample time for twitter, bathroom breaks, a few rounds of CSGO and a raid dungeon in between plays.. ;)
 
Praxas said:
Yet again show me where I said what you claim in the previous post or go pound sand.
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LOL. Where did I say you were attributing an argument to me?
 
Praxas said:
Which means football ratings were ALREADY in decline so the protests are not the SOLE reason for the decline. Thank you for finally admitting that.
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The protest were the primary reason for the decline in ratings last season too

You people can pretend otherwise, its no skin off my nose.
 
Ikari said:
I don't think it will necessarily help the NFL, but ratings have been declining for a bit before any of this brouhaha. The NFL got too greedy and turned its back on its fans long ago. The game has become too slow, with too many commercials and rules, everything is too expensive. I think that until they address the root causes of the decline, that it won't be fixed.
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Its those horrible color rush uniforms they're wearing. Hurts my eyes. Ugh.
 
jmotivator said:
I'm not swayed by that argument either. It has long been true that there is only about 12 minutes of action in any given football game.. but it was always the custom among friends and family to use the down time to discuss the game, strategy and tend to the grill and make a pit stop. The format seems perfect for a population riddled with ADD since it gives ample time for twitter, bathroom breaks, a few rounds of CSGO and a raid dungeon in between plays.. ;)
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Yeah, but people don't do that anymore. It's a Netflix World. People have turned away from TV and to "bingable" formats, commercials distract from that.

You can not be swayed by these arguments, the decline in TV viewership, the uptick in streaming, but it's there. I watch a few TV programs, but I don't watch them on nominal broadcast. Streamed with maybe 1 commercial 2-3 times during the stream. This is the trend.

The NFL has been going downhill for years, far before players took a knee. The games are less exciting, the rules are getting ridiculous, they commercial break as much as possible, the games are long, the merchandise outrageously priced. The NFL is paying the price for having turned its back on their fans. This kneeling thing, it wasn't much of an issue till Trump made it an issue, nor was it the cause of the decline.
 
Winchester said:
This is why it's down.

viewership.jpg


Why NFL TV ratings are down, and why you don't have to care

https://www.sbnation.com/2016/11/2/13361126/why-are-nfl-tv-ratings-down
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NFL Ratings are down and anthem protest are the biggest reason why...
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cb...gest-reason-nfl-viewers-stopped-watching/amp/
 
Fenton said:
The protest were the primary reason for the decline in ratings last season too

You people can pretend otherwise, its no skin off my nose.
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Right? I actually love that they don't understand what is actually happening or why NFL fans are tuning out. My only wish in all of this is that the NFL figures it out before the kill the golden goose. I'd like to go back to watching it someday.

Interesting anecdote: Of the roughly 20 people in my office who are diehard NFL fans there are only 2 who plan to watch the games this week.

Caveat 1: This is a military installation and most employees are retired military, so their respect for the flag and anthem are, shall we say, above average.

Caveat 2: Whether they all follow through remains to be seen.
 
Ikari said:
Yeah, but people don't do that anymore. It's a Netflix World. People have turned away from TV and to "bingable" formats, commercials distract from that.

You can not be swayed by these arguments, the decline in TV viewership, the uptick in streaming, but it's there. I watch a few TV programs, but I don't watch them on nominal broadcast. Streamed with maybe 1 commercial 2-3 times during the stream. This is the trend.

The NFL has been going downhill for years, far before players took a knee. The games are less exciting, the rules are getting ridiculous, they commercial break as much as possible, the games are long, the merchandise outrageously priced. The NFL is paying the price for having turned its back on their fans. This kneeling thing, it wasn't much of an issue till Trump made it an issue, nor was it the cause of the decline.
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Well, no doubt episodic television has been affected by streaming.. but it doesn't seem to affect viewership of episodic television that everyone likes. Consider GAME OF THRONES.. while I don't watch it, it is definitely appointment television for the vast majority of fans because they don't want spoilers around the water cooler on Monday. Few people would watch a rerun of an NFL game since the uncertainty is part of the fun. People are turning away from Football as appointment television, but not GAME OF THRONES. Why is that?

As a thought experiment: What do you think would happen to GAME OF THRONES viewership if every episode made overt pro-life statements?
 
jmotivator said:
LOL. Where did I say you were attributing an argument to me?
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Here is what you claimed:

jmotivator said:
This issue didn't start with Trump's statements.
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Now, where did I say it started with Trump's statements as you claim? If you can't even b e bothered to remember what you typed then don't respond to me.
 
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