NFL Excuses Run Out After Ratings Declines Continue
 

NFL's Litany of Excuses Runs Out After Ratings Fall for Second Year

By Lucas Shaw
Bloomberg.com
November 2, 2017, 11:30 AM CDT



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.”

With CBS Corp., 21st Century Fox Inc. and Walt Disney Co. set to report earnings in the next few days, analysts are bound to raise questions. These companies have used the popularity of the games to extract additional fees from cable operators, promote other shows on their networks and sell lots of commercials. Pro football games drew about $3.5 billion in ad spending last year, including the postseason, according to SMI Media Inc.

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.

Viewership of the four main broadcast networks fell 8.7 percent last year, and 12 percent among adults 18 to 49, an important demographic for advertisers.

CBS’s 11 percent slump for NFL games is the steepest of the networks. Its parent company, which reports earnings after the close Thursday, is more vulnerable than rivals to the trend because the vast majority of its earnings come from the broadcast network. The declines at CBS reinforce a complaint that has gotten louder and louder in recent weeks: The league got greedy in adding the Thursday night game on broadcast.

Reserving top games for Thursday night robbed other time periods of good match-ups. After a nosedive in ratings at “Monday Night Football” last season, the league has scheduled better games for that time period, further damaging Sunday afternoon.

“Ratings declines on both general entertainment and NFL programming could be the single biggest point of focus for investors this quarter, and we’re not sure what media companies can say about the health and tone of the ad market to assuage fears,” Steven Cahall, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, wrote in a note last month.

Viewership is dropping fast among people under 54 -- a key demographic for advertisers -- and even faster among those 18 to 34. Audiences for games on CBS, NBC and Fox have slid at least 10 percent among that younger cohort.

Advertisers aren’t abandoning the NFL, one of the only places they can still reach more than 10 million people at once. But they are growing concerned. John Schnatter, who appears in TV spots on behalf of his Papa John’s Pizza International Inc., laid into the league on a conference call this week, blaming the ratings for his company’s slow revenue growth and calling for the league to put an end to player protests.

Networks and other advertisers identify a wide range of reasons for the NFL’s struggles. The league has overexposed itself by making highlights available on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Snapchat. Identifiable stars like Peyton Manning and Aaron Rodgers have either retired or gotten hurt. The quality of play has deteriorated. Player protests and concussions have driven away some fans.

Some executives argue viewership of the league has still improved over the long term while dropping for every other show. Yet the amount of time people have spent watching football this season is at the lowest point since 2011, back when there were fewer televised games, according to Mike Mulvihill, Fox Sports’ head of research.

“The cumulative effect of everything happening in the world at large is having an impact on NFL viewership,” Mulvihill said. “ The league was defying the laws of gravity.”

One thing they could do is to make the games more accessible to other viewing mediums like MLB does. As the article states, more people just aren't watching TV the way they used to.

Maybe another thing to do is get rid of the announcers. I find them mostly irritating and turn down the game and turn up the music.

Name one sport whose ratings didn't go down.

I don't get why people are trying to make it just the NFLs problem as if other leagues aren't seeing falling ratings. I don't understand why no one is mentioning the rise of DVR and cord cutting/streaming as the major cause for falling ratings. I've watched every single Monday night genre this season and all of them were by stream.

Until they figure out a new metric for ratings, we're going to keep seeing falling ratings for tv shows, especially live events
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Commercials. Way too many commercials.

I don't know many people who even watch them by "channel" anymore. I, along with many others, purely "stream" them through Sunday ticket apps/Fubo/etc...

They need a new metric because I, along with many of you I'm sure, don't even have cable anymore as nearly all "channels" are streamable including CBS, Fox, ESPN.

Welp, at least Papa John is screaming butthurt.

Always look for the positives.

The demographic that grew up watching pre-Gooddell football is bailing?

Who would have thought?

They have been mentioning other sports...but the NFL has been seen as made out of Teflon - people will change their habits to watch. Well...they won't, now. That's news - and it's bad news for a league that has been a juggernaut. Baseball viewership down? Old news...it's become more of a regional audience for years.

Plus, don't downplay the actual decreases in viewership and the reasons therein. It's anecdotal, but I have plenty of friends who were die hard NFL viewers that have given up on the league the last two years (for excuses that range from "the fix is in" to the politicization of the sport they watch for escape and entertainment).

Where are OBJ, Watt, Luck, Berry, Edelman, Rodgers, and now Watson

So much star power on the sidelines. That's a factor

There are new stars in the making every year that interest people.

Thats total BS. When his Pizza sales took a dive last time he publicly blamed Obama.

The NFL are greedy ****s.They took Direct TV's money instead of seeing the big picture. They could have charged $20 a game to stream online and made more money and people would have been happier.

Millennial's want their content online. Everyone, well most people know this fact. Right now in America, Millennial's are the largest group of customers in America. The NFL is missing the boat.

They should hire Mr Plow to suck the poison out

True but none of them have the cache of those guys yet. Their replacements are boring. Brett Huntley? Jacoby Brissett?

Did anyone read the article? Viewership of the four networks is down 8.7 percent. Over the same time period, viewership of the NFL is down by 7%.

People don't want to be held hostage to a set time and place to watch things.

From cnnmoney a few weeks ago:

"Through week seven, the NFL is down 5% overall from the same point last year. That's a troubling drop for the biggest ratings powerhouse on TV, but it seems less dire when you consider that the four major networks are down an average 8% in prime time.
NBC is down 4%, CBS is down 6%, ABC is down 11%, and Fox's prime time viewership dropped 20% through the first month of the new TV season, according to Nielsen data. And those numbers are down despite the inclusion of live sporting events, which usually bring in big audiences.

The NFL's sluggish viewership may be less a symptom of the league's problems and more about what's happening in the TV environment overall. The landscape has become incredibly fragmented, thanks to a flood of programming and competition from streaming services and from the internet, not to mention a 24-hour news cycle that comes with a breathtaking amount of content. Television, Netflix, Hulu and Amazon are all vying for the same eyeballs, and there are no signs that the deluge of programming will ebb any time soon.

The numbers for network TV are also partially tied to the NFL's struggles, since CBS and NBC both broadcast games in prime time on Sunday and on Thursday nights.
"Regardless of the declines, the NFL is still by far the highest rated sport on TV and often the most watched broadcast on TV," said Brian Hughes, a senior vice president at Magna, which monitors audience trends. "

Maybe people are smarter than they think and they are seeing the league fix a Superfarce for a retiring Manning. Then they lose interest. I know that football has lost a lot of appeal for me once I realized that it wasn't a pure competition anymore.

It's one of a million things. First, get rid of that ridiculous directv contract. If people are cutting the cord why would you force them to buy a ridiculous dish? The nfl already offers streaming but you can't get it without directv. You're absolutely right, mlb is one of the few sports with higher ratings and its because they embraced streaming.

It's another example where the nfl chose profit over popularity. When you do that for 20 years, it catches up to you. Sports are most popular when more people watch frequently. The nfl, on the other hand, has priced out many fans from the ridiculously expensive game day experience, they've priced fans out of jerseys because of licensing deals, they've cut off access to millions of viewers who'd gladly buy nfl Sunday ticket if it didn't require access to a dish.

On top of that... Injuries have made the game unbearable, way too many flags, a commissioner who would enforces rules to boost fantasy football numbers, an overdramatic personal conduct enforcement... Yeah, I find myself not loving the nfl like I used to.

Too many penalties for hard hits, ridiculous fines, constant rule changes, Thursday night games that leave teams unprepared/tired, the London games and protests have killed the NFL. It is only going to get worse until these owners learn to just leave the sport alone and stop being so greedy.

IMO it's these billionaire businessmen who probably have never played any sports in their life that are ruining this game because of their greed.

Yea, I never watch the London games (I think that's such a waste) and rarely watch the Thursday games. Not a fan of even having them. It's just too much and way too soon of a turnaround for the players. I also don't watch all the games on Sunday anymore because of all the rules changes, what defines a catch, bad calls, etc.... Once the Chiefs game is done, so am I.

Yeah, they need to change the way we can access the games. Being out of market, I almost never get Chiefs games on my home tele ( this year of course being a pretty major exception to our primetime games ). If I could select my own game to watch ( and even pay for that single game ) I would watch more each week. I have to look at that dumb NFL coverage map each week to determine which stupid games I get, and which are blacked out completely since I live in Jax, but don't give a hoot about the Jags.

Yeah, it is also over-exposure in games that I don't care about. This is the time of year each year where I lose interest in any non-Chiefs games.. even while playing fantasy football.

I used to watch every game possible, now it's just Chiefs, and even then I am thinking about doing something else.

I am probably in the minority, but it's officiating for me. The game is harder and harder to watch.

I used to be the same way. Now I listen to the chiefs on nfl mobile more than watch them on tv. Easier and less time consuming.

The officiating has done me in too for Sunday games. I can barely stomach it watching the Chiefs, but to see it game after game is maddening. :cuss:
So, no more.

Get rid of the Thursday game, period. The only time I watch that and even MNF is when the Chiefs play. Streaming isn't an option for me since my internet is capped and very expensive, but I would like to have a single game PPV option on my dish.

I'm on the opposite end of the hard hits thing. The nfl hasn't don't nearly enough to stop them. I'm tired of the nfl being a gladiator battle where a few lucky teams limp into the playoffs with their starters. The number 1 thing the nfl can do is figure out how to keep the players on the damn field.

Some uppity black men made them uncomfortable and in their temper tantrum they want to watch it all burn.

They were reminded they hate the players more then the love the game.

Yes and yes! :clap::clap:

Your DOTY was well earned! :facepalm:

"Inmates are running the prison"

We consume things differently than we did 5 years ago... 10 years ago.

Streaming games, via DTV (or other) on your mobile devices at a rate not deemed insane is what people want.

We have 10,000 things screaming for our attention on game day - if I'm stuck watching 2 games with teams I don't like, then I'm not watching. That's a lot of the problem.

Nobody wants to invest time into a product when their team is screwed. The injuries are taking a big hit to the league.

Guaranteed we'll see a dip from Packers fans bc Rodgers is done and Houston will follow suit shortly.

Most of the games suck these days.

Unless you have Sunday ticket. Most of the games they show you locally are of zero interest to most folks.


Do I really care about nyg and Tampa bay playing when Denver , Oakland or SD is playing at the same time? Nope.

Therefore find other things to do.

Perhaps we are sick of the cowboys and giants being forced down our ****ing throats every week. Seriously i stream most of my games through internet websites that dont contribute to ratings. Its a shame they keep contracting with directv for the ticket. I will not pay Directv $200 a month so i can watch football.


I have seen the other side.
The side that lets you pick which game to watch.
And i will continue to use that side.
Until that side decides to part.

https://i.imgur.com/nhr7bou.gif

As far as the Thurs night games go, it'd be a lot easier to watch if I didn't have to chase down an official stream every time.
Pick a company and stick with it!
Let's just stop with switching the stream providers, please.

I’ve been saying this for months.

Regardless of whether or not the ratings are down (streaming isn’t included in the Nielsen ratings), there is no other program that can consistently garner 20 million+ viewers per episode like NFL games.

I wonder what the Super Bowl is going to feel like this year. So many of the league's best players recently retired, injured, suspended, declining, etc. There are no great teams out there. I wonder if there won't be some weird matchup that everybody knows should never have happened.

I also think they need to get around the silly rules on Sunday regarding games being divided up between networks by conference and some networks getting two games while others only get one. Let the local stations decide which games to air. They could even poll fans on which 'other games' they want to see this week.

For me it comes down to a lot of the things already mentioned.

• Oversaturation - MNF used to be special, thanksgiving games used to be what you sat down on the couch in a half turkey coma to watch. Now they've added a 3rd game, there is a Thursday game, there is London. I don't have time for all of this and the primetime games have lost their meaning.
• The Officiating / Rules - I get tired of games being called differently based on who is playing. Oh this team just plays physical defense the whole game so we aren't gonna call any hits to the head on them. We also don't know what a catch is. DPI is game changing and when teams can pretty much get away with any OPI they want and get DPI calls on half of them it gets unwatchable.
• The Protests / Reaction - I don't really care about the protests. I figure if someone wants to use that to make their statement that's fine. The fact that nobody talks about what the players are actually protesting and instead wants to debate whether it's disrespectful every single game is just wearing me out.
• Inconsistent Penalties - Fines/Suspensions handed down by the front office are very inconsistent. The league wants to appear tough on domestic violence so it goes after Zeke when it looks like the allegations might have been false but completely ignores other players. Intentionally dive at a QB's knees that's a fine, make contact against a defenseless receiver that was probably not intentional, that's a suspension.

Cord cutters don't show up in the ratings system, doesn't mean they aren't watching. They need to change the way the ratings numbers are gathered.

This reminds me of how the Raiders literally wore down the referees with all their OPI during the Chiefs game. The Raiders knew if they just did it every play that eventually the refs would give up on the call or they'd just wait until it was extremely blatant to call it. The Crabtree TD at the very end was exactly the same as the Austin Seferian-Jenkins TD in last nights game, except it was called OPI in the Jets game. When referees control a game based on their subjective flags, it ruins the game.

Do people actually watch games on their phones? I pads? Laptops?

I am to the point where I am thinking about replacing the 12 year old 50 inch Tv, wanting a bigger one.

I've never understood how ratings work anyway. How can they accurately know how many people are truly watching a certain game? Or even make a ballpark estimation?

Welcome to the digital age.

Working in advertising, I know that TV viewership is down across the board. It's not just the NFL. Advertisers aren't willing to shell out the cash on big TV campaigns like they were 5 or 6 years ago...it's a dying medium.

The fact that the NFL continues to be perplexed by their declining ratings is comical to me. The funny part is that, while fewer people are probably watching football today than 5 or 6 years ago...it's not as drastic as the ratings may show. I don't watch games on TV. I stream them, and so do millions of others on a weekly basis. I don't even HAVE cable anymore.

Until they figure out how to start accounting for streaming, they'll never truly know what their viewership numbers are. And even then, figuring out how to advertise to a streaming audience that isn't paying attention, uses ad blockers, etc. is an entirely different issue.

Yes

Might be due in part to the fact that the Broncos suck Kevin Spacey ass this season, but I'm missing more games and just checking scores after the games are over. Turns out that I've seen enough football to know what it looks like without watching a game as it's happening.

I'm not pissed. I'm not protesting. I'm not boycotting. I'm just a little bored by the NFL's current interpretation of football.

1. Get rid of Thursday night games. They're generally horrible and not worth watching. And unless it's my team playing in it....I'm not rushing home right after work to turn on the TV and watch football on a Thursday night.

2. Bring back NFL Europe. The NFL is in dire need of a developmental league that allows these players to transition from the college level to the pros.

3. Offer team packages to fans. Want to watch all of your teams games? Pay $125-$150 a season and we'll allow you to stream them on NFL.com every week.

4. Most importantly....fix the way penalties are called. It's pretty bad when even the most casual fan can watch a game and call out the refs for bullshit penalties or blatant penalties that aren't called.

And yet the Chiefs ratings are up this year more than 5%, bucking the national trend.

The reason for the decline in ratings is as follows:

1. 2014 was the NFL's ratings peak and most insiders knew that the decline was going to happen at some point in the near future.

2. Mobile watching is a real factor. Twitter paid $50 million to stream Thursday night games last year, Amazon paid $50 million this year. Verizon offers every NFL game via their service so people are watching on phones and tablets.

3. Streaming, illegal and legal, has taken a chunk of viewers from traditional watching to new age.

4. Red Zone TV is a huge factor. Why watch a single game when you can watch scoring plays as they happen?

5. NFL Game Mix: Similar to above. When the Chiefs aren't playing, I'll generally have Game Mix on with the sound muted so I can keep an eye on all of the day's action.

6. Bad big market/popular teams. It's no secret that when the Giants, Jets, Cowboys, Redskins and Packers suck, the ratings are down. The Chargers ratings are abysmal and aren't even being counted. The Bay Area's ratings are off as well, which shouldn't be surprising when they host 0-8 and 3-4 teams.

Mobile and streaming numbers aren't included in the Nielsen ratings, which definitely accounts for more than a few percent. Until Nielson or some other company can track streams, the ratings will likely be off.

But again, the sky isn't falling. There isn't a single program that can haul 20+ million viewers per episode these days, let alone, 26 million, as some NFL games have this season.

Yeah, the amount of non-Chiefs games I am watching has been declining steadily the last few years for basically this reason.

Seems like it'd be easier to accurately gauge viewer numbers with internet streaming than with the stupid Nielsen tv ratings system. I know myself along with my family members have always had cable or satellite since the 80s. Until a couple years ago. Now we all cut it off and just watch stuff online or an HD antenna for local broadcasts.

I don't have an issue with the idea of a Thursday night game but the execution is poor because the players aren't rested.

After the initial Thursday Night game to kick off the season, the NFL should introduce Thursday night games Week 5 and feature teams that are coming off their Bye Week. That way, players will be well rested coming into the Thursday night game and have additional days off until their next Sunday game.

Also, **** having shitty teams on Thursday Night. If the NFL wants to improve their ratings, only 1st and 2nd place teams from the prior season should be featured on Thursday night.

Nobody wants to sit through Tennessee vs. Jacksonville or in last night's case, Buffalo vs. the Jets.

Boring.

I haven't watched a single game all year that didn't have the Chiefs playing in it, and I haven't even watched all of them in their entirety. It has nothing to do with my TV viewing habits and everything to do with it being an uninteresting shit product.

I heard they were planning on cutting 10 Thursday games next season.

I'm fine with that. I still probably wouldn't watch them though.

Putting premier matchups on Thursday nights screws FOX and CBS out of their best Sunday games, and it also screws the fans.

Get rid of it entirely.

And the asinine London games as well.

Give the ****ing league back to the fans for crissakes.

Only an opinion, but I began watching the NFL when they first began broadcasting games. Folks back then LOVED the idea of football on TV. Then, along came Monday Night Football and it was GREAT!!

Then came Sunday NIGHT Football and then Thursday night football. Honest to god - I think that one of the prime reasons for the drop in viewership is "overkill".

The game has changed over the years as well. Now? there are 100 flags during a game. This isn't allowed, that isn't allowed. This hit is "bad" while this hit is OK.

There are FAR too many commercials during the average game. I get the idea that sponsors want the commercial time but holy shit!

Cable and Satellite services are being dropped at a phenomenal rate. People just can't afford $200 a month for television. Hell, we dropped DirecTv a couple of months ago and STILL haven't missed a Chiefs game (which, coincidentally, is the only game I watch these days).

People have attributed the loss of viewership to the protests and I think, that to a certain extent, they may be right. Football to many was the last bastion of "'Murica!" and now, it seems to many like even that is going by the way. So, I'm sure that there is that segment of society that said "to hell with the NFL" and moved on to something else.

None of this is actually "provable" - but there it is...

Well, not really. CBS has the rights to Thursday night games and last year (or 2 years ago, I can't remember) CBS and NBC broadcast eight games each while the NFL Network simulcast the games.

Also, CBS and Fox have bigger issues with Flexed games to Sunday night than Thursday night matchups, although there is monetary compensation when games are Flexed.

I watched a game last week that was officiated by Hoculi's crew. The announcers said they average 27 penalty calls per game. That's insane.

Sadly the officials think they NEED to be part of the production as well. They like their influence know and they like their air time.

Sadly no one on the planet cares to ever see them on tv.

I am a cord cutter, my ratings are recorded just fine...

False.

Local OTA viewership is part of the Nielsen ratings system.

Streaming is not.

I just started the Nielsen diary yesterday for the next week.Sunday's logging should be interesting with 5-6 guys in the gameroom and football on 7 tv's for the whole day.

Seriously though if it weren't for fantasy football and the excitement of gambling my viewership would be way down.

Media advertising is forever in a state of flux. Just as the internet is choking out newspapers, yellow pages and direct mail, streaming platforms are taking a bite out of terrestrial and satellite TV viewership. It's getting tougher to reach a precise demo target due to all the fragmentation. The market will correct itself for a time until the next revolutionary choice is introduced that might super serve a key demographic group.

This is the normal evolution of the industry and what it means is that the over the air and network operators and going to have to readjust their income projections downward which will trickle down to the NFL franchises until new ways are created to bilk the public.

Yep, Antenna is recorded.

Even streaming is recorded now dane. they hook up fire tv, roku, and other media streaming devices to their setup. I am not sure how the data is used, or if it is included in the overall ratings though.

Do you know anyone, ANYONE, who has said “I’m not going to watch NFL games any more because of the player protests.”
It’s purely due to viewing habits/online.

I do know a few people who have said that. They are not really fans of football though, and more likely just watch some of the patriots primetime games/playoff games because that is what a typical patriots "fan" does.

Not a popular opinion on this board but Chiefs being on so many national tv games aren't good for ratings either. Small tv market hurts even when the local market ratings are good.

Oh I've heard guys say it, but every Sunday - there they are, glued to the TV.

Maybe

But they have played bigger name draws in the prime time games.

It was truly Totino's that has hurt Papa John's.

Yeah, they are also pulling teams out from cities and moving them now... I'm sure viewership has been greatly reduced by Charger and Ram fans, and certainly some Raider fans.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago that I looked into Spectrum TV because I was so aggravated at the officiating of the Raiders game and that a good friend here in SoCal, that's also a Chiefs fan, made the switch.

He cut off his Direct TV service and switched to Spectrum after the Chiefs loss to Oakland and he was heading into first weekend without the Sunday Ticket in more than 17 years.

Cut it on October 20th. Done. Nada.

Fast forward one week and I receive a text from him that says "Dude, I couldn't take it. Even ONE Sunday without Sunday Ticket was brutal. I called and got for free, along with a bunch of other discounts".

3 biggest markets:
1. NY - Giants are abysmal and everyone wrote off the Jets before the season started.
2. SF/Oakland - One horrible team, one team moving.
3. Chicago - poor team.

Yes.

The core game itself leaves a lot to be desired. I don't know if it's because I've changed or the game.

Yeah. More than a few. I've even got a friend on Facebook that was leaving comments anytime someone posted about watching NFL games trying to shame them into not watching. Which went over well...

Some and some only watch Chief games now. It has had an impact for sure.

I know two as well - one will still watch his teams' game - but that's it.

The only one's really denying this are conservatives that want to believe it's due to players kneeling...and Trump.

Anyone with half a ****ing brain can see what's occurring here.

Type in “nfl burn notice“ on YouTube and see how many fans burn gear, tickets etc and swear off the NFL.

Fans from different teams burning their NFL stuff.

Every male on my block won’t even watch the NFL anymore. I went from watching every game possible to only watching the chiefs. Kneeling has caused a big fan base to turn elsewhere. No surprise viewing is down.

My neighborhood had a Halloween party and everyone was talking about they don’t even watch Monday night football anymore.

I have to watch because oh sure now the Chiefs will make it to the SB and no one will be watching or care lol

A lot of grumpy old man complaining in here. Not sure why the average fan gives a shit about TV ratings in the first place.

Don't want to watch the Thursday night game? Then don't watch. No need to be pissed that it is taking place. The NFL will quit playing Thursday when they decide it isn't financially beneficial for them.

Complaining about too many penalties...you want them to call penalties or not?

The refs are the same as they always were. Replay and a million hi-def slo-mo angles just makes it easier to see the slightest thing they missed and have plays overturned.