NFL Ratings Decline Has Little To Do With Game’s Popularity

There is some proof that injury concerns and the national anthem controversy have hurt the NFL to some extent, but far less than people assume.

If anything would’ve sunk this league in prior decades it would’ve been the crippling work stoppages of 1982, 1987, and 2011. Yet the game overcame those issues to become the most popular sport in North America. Why? Simple. Football is fun to watch. It’s an exciting game. One of those rare sports that can be engaging from start to finish. Unlike baseball, hockey and basketball that can be ignored until the final minutes of a game.

Yet people have had pointed to a ratings decline for the league all season, stating that this means the game is in decline. That of course is a gross overexaggeration. Many things have gone into why the TV rating are down. A big one they’ve conveniently neglected to mention is the overall decline of television itself.

NFL ratings are going same direction as everyone else’s

Television has dominated the media mainstream for over a half century. Things began to change though when the internet arrived in the mid-1990s. Nobody knew it at the time but this would eventually become an avenue to compete with TV for the attention of audiences. That of course being the rise of digital streaming. Albert Breer of the MMQB points out that there’s been a paradigm shift in how people are absorbing their visual media the past couple years.

"“Now, it’s also important to understand that TV ratings across the board—not just sports—are dropping for a large number of reasons, mostly related to technology, the amount of options people have, and cord cutting.In fact, one team executive looked at the numbers, and actually didn’t see them as all bad. He said, “I took away that compared to TV, the NFL is actually stronger year over year, compared to other programming. But the league does need to better understand how change in habits will affect ratings long-term.”"

In the end this is another frontier that the NFL will have to explore in order to grow their game. People had no idea what TV would do to its popularity when it arrived in the mainstream during the 1950s. Then came the internet in the 1990s and once figured out it helped grow the game to new heights. There’s a chance digital streaming is the next level to master. Once they have there’s no reason to think football won’t continue to thrive.