NFL Ratings Tank -- Worst Viewership in Nearly 2 Decades
David Hookstead writes at the Daily Caller:
NFL ratings are in an absolute free fall after week two of the season.
Viewership for the league is down to its lowest point since 1998, according to Sports Media Watch [SMW].
The evidence? Hookstead quotes the following from SMW:
The Week 2 NFL singleheader window delivered an 8.4 rating and 14.5 million viewers on CBS Sunday, down 24% in ratings and viewership from last year on FOX (11.0, 19.2M) and down 14% and 13% respectively from 2015 on CBS (9.8, 16.7M).
The 8.4 rating is the lowest for the Week 2 singleheader since at least 1998. The first two NFL windows on CBS this season have both declined double-digits to multi-year lows.
How to account for this dismal performance?
"The writing has been on the wall since last season when Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem," Hookstead explains. "People have grown tired of the NFL becoming a political side show, and it's exhausting getting lectured about the problems with society during games."
Are people simply growing tired of football? Consider: "College football has no problem getting viewers. Plenty of unimportant games are still garnering at least a million viewers," Hookstead writes, "which is a pretty clear indication that it's not football itself that's becoming unpopular."
