Like other sports, the NFL is not immune to having declined ratings this year due to the coronavirus pandemic and presidential election. But the decline is not as bad as feared.
According to The League and Nielson, this year’s games are averaging 15.1 million television and digital viewers, a 6% decline from last year. Despite the decrease, all but four of the top 30 shows have been NFL games.
Neal Pilson, the former president of CBS Sports said, “Considering all the issues the NFL has had to deal with, the ratings are OK.” He added, “It hasn’t been a great year for ratings considering everything that has happened, but they aren’t in the toilet either.”
Sports consultant Marc Ganis cited the lack of preseason games to build up fan interest, and all four major professional sports playing in September as other reasons for this year’s slow start.
The ratings also didn’t suffer declines as they did during the 2016 presidential election cycle when they were down 14%.
“I know there have been lots of, well, ‘NFL ratings are down.’ Not really. Election years, they’ve been going down for the last three election cycles, not just the last one,” Ganis said. “The NFL ratings have actually been quite good. They’re going to get better now that the election is over. The gap between the NFL and all the other sports in terms of TV ratings has grown. So the NFL has gotten stronger vis a vis other sports.”
The decline is also due to the NFLs lack of response to racial inequalities, especially in the NFL where the majority of their players are black. People have become disappointed in the NFLs response and have pulled back from football. Unlike the NBA.