We now know that the ratings for Sunday night's NFL game were down about 8%. That's a rather ominous statistic. The NFL's ratings were already falling. The league has its revenue stream for TV locked in for the next few seasons, but it's unclear if any of the networks has an escape clause that could be activated in the even of lower viewership. Remember, the bulk of the cash that gets used to pay for all the sky-high salaries of the "oppressed" players comes from TV revenue. If that revenue falls, so will salaries, team profits and all the hoopla associated with the NFL. It happened to major league baseball; it could happen to the NFL.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the NFL is about to fold. I'm just saying that the protests by the players and the non-reaction by the league to those protests could mark the start of a serious decline in the number and loyalty of fans. We will need to see what happens next week. Politics and sports don't really mix. Think of ESPN and how badly that network is falling in recent years. It used to be the premiere cable network with no competition for that title. Now, it doesn't even pull in the largest audience each week. People who watch want to hear about sports, not about how sports or other figures view politics.
Let me put this another way. Every Sunday there are a series of shows on the main broadcast networks that discuss the current national news with a heavy emphasis on politics. Shows like Meet The Press or Fox News Sunday get audiences of a few million people. Also on Sundays, there are all sorts of football games broadcast. If those games only got the ratings that the Sunday morning news shows get, the networks would go into a panic. There's an audience for political news, but it is just nowhere near as large as the audience for sports. Whatever genius decided that it makes sense to replace some of the sports content with politics ought to be fired.
There's a place for politics, a place for protest and a place for sports. It's not the same place, however. The sooner the NFL and its players realize this, the more likely they are to recover from this latest self inflicted wound.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting that the NFL is about to fold. I'm just saying that the protests by the players and the non-reaction by the league to those protests could mark the start of a serious decline in the number and loyalty of fans. We will need to see what happens next week. Politics and sports don't really mix. Think of ESPN and how badly that network is falling in recent years. It used to be the premiere cable network with no competition for that title. Now, it doesn't even pull in the largest audience each week. People who watch want to hear about sports, not about how sports or other figures view politics.
Let me put this another way. Every Sunday there are a series of shows on the main broadcast networks that discuss the current national news with a heavy emphasis on politics. Shows like Meet The Press or Fox News Sunday get audiences of a few million people. Also on Sundays, there are all sorts of football games broadcast. If those games only got the ratings that the Sunday morning news shows get, the networks would go into a panic. There's an audience for political news, but it is just nowhere near as large as the audience for sports. Whatever genius decided that it makes sense to replace some of the sports content with politics ought to be fired.
There's a place for politics, a place for protest and a place for sports. It's not the same place, however. The sooner the NFL and its players realize this, the more likely they are to recover from this latest self inflicted wound.
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