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Home Front: Culture Wars
NFL Ratings Down Big on Opening Night Amid Renewed Anthem Protests
2017-09-10
[Breitbart] The NFL opened its 2017 season Thursday night, in much the same way that it played out the 2016 season. The game featured the team that won the final game of the year last season, the game was high-scoring with plenty of offense, the game featured an anthem protest, and the league’s ratings went down.

The game between the Chiefs and the Patriots drew a 14.6 overnight rating on NBC. That rating is down nearly two full points from last year’s 16.5 number for the Panthers-Broncos opener, and more than three points down from the Steelers-Patriots opener in 2015.

Why, the steep decline?

While the ratings have clearly trended down for a number of seasons, last night’s game did feature an anthem protest from Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters, and it’s entirely likely that many tuned-out after seeing that:
Posted by:Besoeker

#15  Kraft was instrumental in securing Goodell a gargantuan salary that amounts to a total of about $300 million over seven years.

Unfuckingbelievable
Posted by: Frank G   2017-09-10 19:07  

#14  Replacing Goodell with a box of hammers would be a step up. Can't the owners get together and toss him out the nearest window? Or is it that for most of them, owning a team is just a hobby and they can't be bothered while a few malcontents destroy the league?
Posted by: PBMcL   2017-09-10 19:01  

#13  He has the physical skills

Look at his career performance numbers as a quarterback
Posted by: Pappy   2017-09-10 18:05  

#12  No Fun League
Posted by: Frank G   2017-09-10 17:23  

#11  NFL means Not For Long?
Posted by: Glenmore   2017-09-10 17:23  

#10  I disagree, Clem. It kinda shows who we can trust and who we can't. If your foreign players don't like it they are free to go back to their countries of origin. If I was a guest in another country I would think of it as a courtesy to my hosts to stand and show respect at the playing of their national anthem.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2017-09-10 17:13  

#9  This whole national anthem thing is so unnecessary--in all [North] American professional sports. It is a Cold War anachronism. Besides, with so many foreign players in the MLB, NHL, and the NBA (even throw in MLS), any national anthem before a PROFESSIONAL game is ridiculous. These anthems just don't have a place in pro sports.

BTW, having said that, no tears are shed by me about low NFL TV ratings, etc. None.
Posted by: Clem   2017-09-10 16:49  

#8  I gotta believe that most NFL owners are one helluva lot smarter than Spanos. The NFL didn't lose much with Kapernick. He has the physical skills but he's a head case whose best games are far behind him. It's gonna be a bit more difficult to let some of those other players go.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2017-09-10 14:09  

#7  San Diego supported the mostly-hapless Chargers for 55 years. The owner and all-around-piece-of-shit Dean Spanos moved them up north and they can't even sell out a 27,000 seat stadium. Geniusâ„¢
Posted by: Frank G   2017-09-10 12:16  

#6  The NFL leadership read it, said, "Nahhh, that can't be right,"

Roger Goodell isn't the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I'm not just saying that because he screwed the Patriots on the trumped up Deflategate bullshit.

The lone 'protester (KC's CB Peters) was begrudgingly mentioned by Al Michaels, who has zero interest in covering these protests. I doubt he would have even mentioned it unless the suits at NBC had the proverbial gun to his head to do so, so this shit will keep up because it's coming from the top of the network collective.
Posted by: Raj   2017-09-10 12:12  

#5  I didn't see the protest on Thursday. Maybe they kept the TV cameras away from it. But the singer was great.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2017-09-10 11:03  

#4  Few things still symbolically unite Americans anymore, much of our shared culture is under attack. Respect for the symbol of the nation and it's anthem should be universal, recognizing that it represents deeply held beliefs and pride. When you choose that symbol to insult, you insult me personally. When you think I will then watch you as entertainment and buy the products displayed during that event, you are mistaken. Take your ignorant protest elsewhere before you ruin a great sport.
Posted by: NoMoreBS   2017-09-10 10:51  

#3  ...The funny thing is that the NFL commissioned a secret study a few months ago wanting to know why revenue was down. The answer - clearly stated an backed up with real numbers - was the anthem protests. The reality is that they can NOT face the possibility that they have allowed their employees to utterly alienate the majority of their customers.

The NFL leadership read it, said, "Nahhh, that can't be right," and threw it away. They came up with a whole bunch of other reasons that were, at best, peripheral.

Any business that stupid is NOT getting my money. For the first time in memory - and I am old enough to remember going to Browns games and seeing Jim Brown roar down the field at Lakefront Stadium - I have no intention of watching even a single Browns game.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski   2017-09-10 09:11  

#2  Why the steep decline?
Posted by: Besoeker   2017-09-10 08:42  

#1  The owners need a PATCO season. Then they all can rebuild.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2017-09-10 08:32  

00:00