The popularity of the National Football League, a long-time American cultural icon, is going down the tubes. Television viewership for the NFL has been steadily plummeting for 10 years, and the numbers for Week 12 of this season are dreadful as well. Sports fans will only tolerate a league characterized by disgusting protests, uncivil behavior and Super Bowl halftime trash for so long before tuning out.
In a story by Awful Announcing blogger Joe Lucia, the operative word on recent NFL viewership is “down.” His headline appropriately refers to “declines aplenty.” In several comparisons to 2019 games, the NFL is tanking, and it's been a sinking ship for the past decade.
This ongoing demise is the NFL’s own doing, and the league can’t use the excuse of going against the NBA and MLB, which are in their off-seasons. This is an organization that has green-lighted social justice activism and criminal behavior by its players and athletes insulting the public by acting like jackasses.
Reporting on last week’s NFL TV ratings, Lucia said only two of the league’s game viewership statistics were up from the same week of play in 2019. Most of the viewership numbers were down.
Starting with the early Thanksgiving Day game, the Houston-Detroit game on CBS drew a season-high 23.389 million viewers, but that’s down 14 percent from the comparable broadcast in 2019.
The Washington vs. Dallas game on Fox attracted 30.333 million viewer, the season’s most-watched NFL game. But that represents a 7-percent decline compared to the Buffalo-Dallas Thanksgiving game on CBS last year.
A heavily hyped Kansas City-Tampa Bay game in Week 12 garnered 22 percent fewer fans than the 2019 Dallas-New Orleans game on Fox.
Last Sunday night’s game pitting Green Bay vs. Chicago also fell 22 percent below the comparable 2019 Sunday night game featuring Green Bay and San Francisco.
Positive viewing gains were few and unimpressive last week.
Who wants to watch spoiled, over-paid jocks who've turned pregame ceremonies meant to honor America into anti-American protests?
Who wants to read social justice messages on playing fields and players’ helmets touting criminals and trashing public safety officers?
Who delights in watching lightly punished criminals compete in sports? Or idiots like Odell Beckham Jr. simulating urinating on the president?
Over the last several months, NFL players have been arrested for DUI, domestic violence, battery, disorderly conduct, hit-and-run, drugs, armed robbery, vandalism, drug violations (see photo of Denver’s Melvin Gordon, arrested in October for drunk driving). When these players add Black Lives Matter activism to their sorry acts, it only alienates more fans. On top of all this, we’re just a couple months away from yet another women-degrading bozo disgracing the Super Bowl halftime stage.
So, NFL, continue on down this self-destructive path you’re on while your sorry house continues to burn down.
