The NFL Ratings Decline Problem

[FlocksGottaFeed]

On 11/7/2016 at 4:59 PM, Willbacker said:

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/10/05/nfl-ratings-week-4-boycott-colin-kaepernick-national-anthem-protests/

Read some of the emails at the end. This is a week 4 article. A lot of you guys seriously just don't get it and will refuse to do so and just keep looking for other excuses. Parity and bad play have been around a long time. Jeez.

Amazing how people can read the same article and come out with a completely different comprehension of what they just read. I read there's a 54/34 split and those who support and those who don't (54% support). From the other 32-34% opposed, approx. 15% of them most likely never watched NFL games at all. Now, to add that 70+ million fans internationally that watch football regardless grossly out-number the est. 15% audience (that choose not to watch because of the boycott?)   in yearly growth for international viewership by millions.

This particular sportswriter seems to always end his columns with an inflated statement, "This should be the biggest national story, most important, ground breaking, etc." He did it with the Manning Drug-thing, Hollywood Reporter-thing and now Fan Boycott-thing. No problem. He's just doing his job. I would think that most people from Boston would be happy to give their full names to be published with their comments. It's Boston not Moscow.

Just saying. The ratings dip has a lot of moving parts. It's hard to say - maybe after today there will be more to measure. Maybe we shouldn't dismiss anyone's opinion or keep all emotion out, because at the end of the day - the NFL still makes billions great ratings or bad ratings.

[52520Andrew]

Lets see how the ratings look on SNF this week

[52520Andrew]

Wow look at that. Now that the election is over and we had a good game, the ratings are back up for Sunday night football.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/11/14/nfl-ratings-week-10-patriots-seahawks-cowboys-steelers/

[JO_75]

4 hours ago, 52520Andrew said:

Wow look at that. Now that the election is over and we had a good game, the ratings are back up for Sunday night football.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/11/14/nfl-ratings-week-10-patriots-seahawks-cowboys-steelers/

I wouldn't get too happy if I were the NFL. It wasn't the fact the election was over, more so those two games were very compelling games and good match ups. Of course a Super Bowl rematch and 2 historic franchises facing off would bring in high ratings. Don't think Packers-Redskins will bring in high ratings next Sunday Night. Have to see if it continues but I think it's more of the NFL putting the wrong games and match ups in Prime Time.

[52520Andrew]

2 minutes ago, JO_75 said:

I wouldn't get too happy if I were the NFL. It wasn't the fact the election was over, more so those two games were very compelling games and good match ups. Of course a Super Bowl rematch and 2 historic franchises facing off would bring in high ratings. Don't think Packers-Redskins will bring in high ratings next Sunday Night. Have to see if it continues but I think it's more of the NFL putting the wrong games and match ups in Prime Time.

Yeah I see it as a combination of the election and poor play. I think ratings will be better than they have been but I don't know if next week will be all that great either. 

[Inqui]

5 hours ago, 52520Andrew said:

Wow look at that. Now that the election is over and we had a good game, the ratings are back up for Sunday night football.

http://boston.cbslocal.com/2016/11/14/nfl-ratings-week-10-patriots-seahawks-cowboys-steelers/

Who'd have thought.

Mind you, it's still too early proclaim the games as back from the dead just yet. The ratings have been fluctuating from week to week all year (a lot of timeslots have actually been up double figures on their slot for the year before and it looks like Fox was no exception this week with a huge increase), so again we'll see how things look come Thanksgiving.

Fwiw I think poor play is one of those death by a thousand cuts things where it doesn't kill the league suddenly. They're finding that in print media, when they lay off quality control staff and people don't stop reading right away, because no one gets mad at a few typos right away - it adds up over time until they get sick of it.

Though with that said, the news networks seeing a 5 per cent drop adds to huge amount of weight to the idea that the election has been the big ratings thief. The only consistent numbers to date this season have been weak primetime figures, where the news networks were seeing consistent double-figure increases in the same slots.

Edited November 14, 2016 by Inqui

[JO_75]

Monday Night Football ratings are in, and the Bengals/Giants game delivered a 7.9 rating which was a 8 percent drop from last year's Week 10 MNF game which was Bengals vs Texans. 

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/11/15/monday-night-ratings-dip-again/

Edited November 15, 2016 by JO_75

[FlocksGottaFeed]

On 11/15/2016 at 2:40 PM, JO_75 said:

Monday Night Football ratings are in, and the Bengals/Giants game delivered a 7.9 rating which was a 8 percent drop from last year's Week 10 MNF game which was Bengals vs Texans. 

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/11/15/monday-night-ratings-dip-again/

I've got to be honest. I couldn't get through half-time and I love football. I imagine last year that the 'J.J. Watt' factor mixed with a winning Bengals team made the difference, but what a huge drop. I wonder has there been similar drops in previous years simply based on the absence of a marquee player while facing a team with a losing record? Interesting.

[RaineV1]

I think the NFL is going to have to flex games more often in the future. Too many seemingly good matchups are now either a good team against a garbage team, or two garbage teams facing each other. Having more options to flex games is something they'll have to look into during the offseason.

[52520Andrew]

Ratings this week a slight improvement over last year. So that is 2 weeks in a row now right after the election. 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2016/11/21/tv-ratings-cbs-nbc-eagles-seahawks-redskins-packers/94216718/

[Inqui]

11 minutes ago, 52520Andrew said:

Ratings this week a slight improvement over last year. So that is 2 weeks in a row now right after the election. 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/nfl/2016/11/21/tv-ratings-cbs-nbc-eagles-seahawks-redskins-packers/94216718/

TNF was up by 93% this week too. O_O 

http://www.sportsmediawatch.com/nfl-tv-ratings-viewership-nbc-cbs-fox-espn-nfln-regular-season-playoffs/

MNF has still taken care hammering so we'll see what happens with today's game. But it's pretty clear the numbers overall have been stabilising, if not improving on last year's figures now that election season and the baseball playoffs are over.

[Inqui]

I said wait for Thanksgiving and there was kind of a mixed bag this time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/11/25/thanksgiving-was-a-good-newsbad-news-kind-of-thing-for-nfl-tv-ratings/

*The Lions/Vikings earned a 14.4 rating, up from the 13.7 the Lions game drew last year.
*The Cowboys/Washington slot got a 15.6, up from 15.3 last year and was the highest-rated regular-season game in Fox Sports history. However....
*Once again the primetime game was the culprit behind bad ratings. The Steelers/Colts got a 10.8, down 26% - which was worse than NBC's 19% drop to date and even ESPN's 24% drop overall.

I guess we'll never know, but I wonder how the ratings would have gone had it been Ravens/Steelers in the late slot. The evidence this season suggests it would have done a lot better.

[JO_75]

44 minutes ago, Inqui said:

I said wait for Thanksgiving and there was kind of a mixed bag this time.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/early-lead/wp/2016/11/25/thanksgiving-was-a-good-newsbad-news-kind-of-thing-for-nfl-tv-ratings/

*The Lions/Vikings earned a 14.4 rating, up from the 13.7 the Lions game drew last year.
*The Cowboys/Washington slot got a 15.6, up from 15.3 last year and was the highest-rated regular-season game in Fox Sports history. However....
*Once again the primetime game was the culprit behind bad ratings. The Steelers/Colts got a 10.8, down 26% - which was worse than NBC's 19% drop to date and even ESPN's 24% drop overall.

I guess we'll never know, but I wonder how the ratings would have gone had it been Ravens/Steelers in the late slot. The evidence this season suggests it would have done a lot better.

The thing about Thanksgiving, what else is there to do besides eat and watch TV? Though I do go back to what someone suggested about the lack of star power. Without Andrew Luck playing, why would anyone watch? Everyone knows the Colts live and die by the quarterback more than any other team(see 2011 Colts and when Luck is injured). So while I give Tolzien credit for attempting to make it a game, fans see it as a easy win for the Steelers without Luck and not a competitive game. 

Also, let's factor by the primetime game everyone is shopping at the stores who open on Thanksgiving night,or waiting in long lines. Plus it's not a surprise the NFC games drew high, Cowboys/Redskins have playoff implications and Vikings/Lions had first place on the line in the NFC North. To your last point, I think Ravens-Steelers is still the highest primetime Thanksgiving game since they added the primetime game on Thanksgiving Night.

[Inqui]

21 hours ago, JO_75 said:

The thing about Thanksgiving, what else is there to do besides eat and watch TV? Though I do go back to what someone suggested about the lack of star power. Without Andrew Luck playing, why would anyone watch? Everyone knows the Colts live and die by the quarterback more than any other team(see 2011 Colts and when Luck is injured). So while I give Tolzien credit for attempting to make it a game, fans see it as a easy win for the Steelers without Luck and not a competitive game. 

Also, let's factor by the primetime game everyone is shopping at the stores who open on Thanksgiving night,or waiting in long lines. Plus it's not a surprise the NFC games drew high, Cowboys/Redskins have playoff implications and Vikings/Lions had first place on the line in the NFC North. To your last point, I think Ravens-Steelers is still the highest primetime Thanksgiving game since they added the primetime game on Thanksgiving Night.

Aside from the specifics of the Colts (where even I checked out after the first drive or so), every single one of those factors applied last year and the year before that and the year before that - which is why they compare it to the same slot in the previous year.

If you go through an extensive look at the ratings (which I provided on the previous page and again three posts up), it's the exact same three slots getting hammered every week - TNF, SNF and MNF - while everything else has either fluctuated week-on-week or actually improved. That suggests it's getting neutrals and fans of other teams to tune in that's the problem. It's only a small sample size to date, but since the election the only two decent match-ups (Cheetahs/Seahawks and Saints/Panthers) have been the two exceptions to that rule of falling primetime ratings. Add that to your points about the Ravens/Steelers being the highest-rated Thanksgiving game to date and about the Colts being rubbish, and I think it's fair to say that the quality of the match is the biggest factor.

Edited November 28, 2016 by Inqui

[RaineV1]

46 minutes ago, Inqui said:

Aside from the specifics of the Colts (where even I checked out after the first drive or so), every single one of those factors applied last year and the year before that and the year before that - which is why they compare it to the same slot in the previous year.

If you go through an extensive look at the ratings (which I provided on the previous page and again three posts up), it's the exact same three slots getting hammered every week - TNF, SNF and MNF - while everything else has either fluctuated week-on-week or actually improved. That suggests it's getting neutrals and fans of other teams to tune in that's the problem. It's only a small sample size to date, but since the election the two only decent match-ups (Cheetahs/Seahawks and Saints/Panthers) have been the two exceptions to that rule of falling primetime ratings. Add that to your points about the Ravens/Steelers being the highest-rated Thanksgiving game to date and about the Colts being rubbish, and I think it's fair to say that the quality of the match is the biggest factor.

Quality of the match and also the rivalry factor.

Also, if it was at all possible, the NFL should have tried to switch the times. Even a couple weeks ago it should have been obvious that the Lions vs Vikings or Cowboys vs Redskins would be much better games to have as the late game rather than the Steelers and Colts.

[Inqui]

28 minutes ago, RaineV1 said:

Quality of the match and also the rivalry factor.

Also, if it was at all possible, the NFL should have tried to switch the times. Even a couple weeks ago it should have been obvious that the Lions vs Vikings or Cowboys vs Redskins would be much better games to have as the late game rather than the Steelers and Colts.

I think it was @BmoreBird22 who said every TNF game should be a rivalry game, and I'd agree with that. I'd also add an extra week to the season and give every team two bye weeks - with each team's extra bye coming before their TNF game. Sure the fantasy players would whinge and threaten to boycott the league, but I think the result would be a net positive.

I also think the NFL should have greater scope to flex games to SNF (ie, it should be able to do it on shorter notice). We see every year match-ups that look like they'll be incredible and then turn out to be complete duds, mainly because no-one actually knows how a team's season will turn out until it happens. How many SNF games do the Cowboys have this season? I genuinely don't know because I haven't counted, but I'd say "not enough" is probably a good guess. But it would take a brave schedule maker to give them too many, because no-one knew back then that they'd be lighting the league up like this. And you probably could have said the same thing about the Panthers last year.

As for MNF, I've got no clue how to fix that. ESPN's been hemorrhaging subscribers for years now so that won't help either.

[52520Andrew]

I think the problem with the prime time ratings may be that they have put too much out there. It used to just be Sunday nights and Monday nights with a couple exceptions. Throwing Thursday night games in there means we have 3 matchups a week and a lot of the Thursday games are rubbish. I think people are starting to get tired of so many prime time games to watch and may be tuning out. Quality of the games also probably is a factor since the bad matchups are the ones suffering. 

[poescrows]

The TV and NFL execs saw a way to make more revenue, and they wound up killing the ratings by flooding the market with too much product........ 3 games on Sunday, 1 on Monday, 1 on Thursday, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas games. In the retail biz, we call that "prostituting" (can't post the word we actually use) out a product. All it does in the end is make the product too accessible and cheapens it's value. 

[RaineV1]

1 hour ago, poescrows said:

The TV and NFL execs saw a way to make more revenue, and they wound up killing the ratings by flooding the market with too much product........ 3 games on Sunday, 1 on Monday, 1 on Thursday, plus Thanksgiving and Christmas games. In the retail biz, we call that "prostituting" (can't post the word we actually use) out a product. All it does in the end is make the product too accessible and cheapens it's value. 

Well, the only new slot from recent years is the Thursday game. For the past twenty some years it's been three timeslots on Sunday (usually televising four games in any given area on Sunday, 1 or 2 early games, 1 or 2 afternoon games, and the Sunday night game], plus the Monday night game. The exception being on Thanksgiving which has always had a few games on. While over exposure can be a bad thing, I can't say just one more game a week was the tipping point.

[JO_75]

5 hours ago, 52520Andrew said:

I think the problem with the prime time ratings may be that they have put too much out there. It used to just be Sunday nights and Monday nights with a couple exceptions. Throwing Thursday night games in there means we have 3 matchups a week and a lot of the Thursday games are rubbish. I think people are starting to get tired of so many prime time games to watch and may be tuning out. Quality of the games also probably is a factor since the bad matchups are the ones suffering. 

We may get our wish on no more Thursday Night Football. The NFL is considering the option of removing Thursday Night Football all together. As well as reducing the amount of Thursday Night games as well(the way it used to be, before they made it every week). 

http://nfltraderumors.co/nfl-may-consider-eliminating-thursday-night-games-reduce-number-played/

[JO_75]

While the NFL is looking into eliminating Thursday Night Football or reducing the amount played, it does seem limiting the amount of games played to the second half of the season is best. Last night's Cowboys-Vikings game drew a TNF record 21.8 million viewers with a TV rating of 14.1. The game peaked at 23 million viewers between 10:30pm-11:00pm which was before the Vikings final drive. 

http://www.nfl.com/news/story/0ap3000000749899/article/cowboysvikings-earns-tnfrecord-218-million-viewers

So the solution to TNF is limiting TNF to the second half of the year, with only playoff teams(starting on Thanksgiving through Week 16), SNF is good. Now the only issue left from the TV ratings aspect is Monday Night Football and why their ratings are still suffering. Wouldn't mind seeing the NFL reduce TNF to Thanksgiving to Week 16, but having each TNF being a flexed game so based off current standings, playoff battles, the NFL can place the best games with playoff implications on TNF.

[VermontRaven]

On 11/27/2016 at 2:21 AM, Inqui said:

I'd also add an extra week to the season and give every team two bye weeks - with each team's extra bye coming before their TNF game.

I really like that idea.  Some of those TNF games are pretty sloppy on short rest.  This would be a great way to combat that and still get the extra primetime slot. Also, having 2 byes could balance out the teams that are forced to have an early bye due to London games. If people are worried about "extending" the season by adding an extra bye week, my suggeation would be to eliminate the extra week between the conference championship games and the super bowl.

[Inqui]

Just now, VermontRaven said:

I really like that idea.  Some of those TNF games are pretty sloppy on short rest.  This would be a great way to combat that and still get the extra primetime slot. Also, having 2 byes could balance out the teams that are forced to have an early bye due to London games. If people are worried about "extending" the season by adding an extra bye week, my suggeation would be to eliminate the extra week between the conference championship games and the super bowl.

Tbh if someone complained about extending the season I think they'd just need to suck it up. The worry about a long season is that players' bodies already get battered and fatigued which puts them at increased risk of injury, so an extra bye week would be win-win for the players and executives imo. Another way to sell it is that it's one less week of offseason (everyone wins!). You're right as well in that it rebalances things for teams that have their bye too early in the season.

But it's a good idea so that means the league won't go for it.  

[52520Andrew]

Ravens Steelers set an NFL Network record for number of views.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/steelers-ravens-sets-nfl-network-record-for-viewers/amp/?client=ms-android-verizon

[JO_75]

5 hours ago, 52520Andrew said:

Ravens Steelers set an NFL Network record for number of views.

https://www.google.com/amp/www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/steelers-ravens-sets-nfl-network-record-for-viewers/amp/?client=ms-android-verizon

The game drew 14.8 million, beating the previous record of 10.7 million which featured the 49ers vs.... the Ravens. 

The Harbaugh Turkey Bowl and our rivalry with the Steelers draw ratings, who knew. 

[Rav'n Maniac]

10 hours ago, JO_75 said:

The game drew 14.8 million, beating the previous record of 10.7 million which featured the 49ers vs.... the Ravens. 

The Harbaugh Turkey Bowl and our rivalry with the Steelers draw ratings, who knew. 

Yeah, the draw is a lot of people outside of Bmore just love hoping for and seeing the Ravens get beat.

[Moderator 3]

11 hours ago, JO_75 said:

The game drew 14.8 million, beating the previous record of 10.7 million which featured the 49ers vs.... the Ravens. 

The Harbaugh Turkey Bowl and our rivalry with the Steelers draw ratings, who knew. 

So somebody please explain to me why we can't get a MNF game.

[usmccharles]

44 minutes ago, Moderator 3 said:

So somebody please explain to me why we can't get a MNF game.

We did...

[Moderator 3]

2 hours ago, usmccharles said:

We did...

At home.

 

[Moderator 2]

16 hours ago, Moderator 3 said:

At home.

 

If do it will be in the Middle of December in the midst of a record --  the kind of game we both lol