Watching football on Thanksgiving Day has become somewhat of a tradition here in America. This year, however, it appears that some Americans may have given that tradition up.
Breitbart reports that the woke National Football League (NFL) experienced below-average television viewership on Thanksgiving Day.
According to Sports Media Watch, the NFL’s Thanksgiving Day television ratings, overall, dropped seven percentage points from last year’s ratings. The least-watched game of the day, and the lowest-rated Thanksgiving Day game since 2009, was the Texans-Lions game, which averaged 23.39 million viewers. The Cowboys game had more viewers, but it still was the least-watched Thanksgiving Day Cowboys game since 2017.
Having said all of that, things were not as bad as they could have been for the NFL on Thanksgiving Day. Some 30 million viewers, after all, did tune in.
The big picture
The Thanksgiving Day television ratings dropoff is in line with the general dropoff in television ratings that the NFL is experiencing this year.
Front Office Sports reports that NFL television ratings are down, across all networks, six percentage points from the ratings achieved during the 2019 season.
“Season-to-date, the NFL is averaging 15 million viewers,” the outlet reports. “That’s off 6% from the same point during the 2019 season.”
Breitbart reports that “the 2020 ratings look to be reversing the small, five percent gains seen during the 2018 and 2019 seasons.”
Low points
Earlier in the season, the NFL had tried to blame its decrease in ratings on the election. The league was hoping to see a post-election bump in viewership. But, it didn’t happen.
In a separate article, Sports Media Watch reported that Sunday Night Football on week 9, which took place after the election, saw a 23 percentage point dropoff from 2019. This was despite the fact that the game, Buccaneers-Saints, was billed as a grudge match between star quarterbacks Tom Brady and Drew Brees.
Things were even worse the following night on Monday Night Football. That game between the Patriots and Jets, according to Sports Media Watch, saw a 30 percent ratings crash, which made it the least-watched week 9 game since 2004.
One wonders when the NFL will come to realize that it wasn’t the election that hurt its television ratings but its own endorsement of far-left politics. Sooner is going to be better than later. Front Office Sports reports:
The stakes are high. All of the league’s media deals expire after the 2021 and 2022 seasons. There are potentially billions of dollars at stake as the NFL tries to nearly double its $5 billion annual rights fees from media partners ESPN, CBS, NBC, and Fox.
The post Woke NFL experiences a drop-off in Thanksgiving Day TV ratings first appeared on Conservative Institute.
No comments: