NFL Excuses Run Out After Ratings Declines Continue

[Eleazar]

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.”

[Mile High Mania]

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.

[RunKC]

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.

[Reerun_KC]

Originally Posted by Mile High Mania

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.

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.

[bigjosh]

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.

[redfan]

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.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

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.

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.

[Eleazar]

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.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by Reerun_KC

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.

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.

[Sorce]

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.

[JakeF]

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.

[KCrockaholic]

Originally Posted by Sorce

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.

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.

[HemiEd]

Originally Posted by Mile High Mania

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.

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.

[lcarus]

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?

[Strongside]

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.

[DaneMcCloud]

Originally Posted by HemiEd

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

Yes