Early Numbers Show Ratings Plunge Got Even Worse for the NFL on Sunday By Johnathan Jones
Published September 14, 2020 at 11:17am
Initial ratings show the woke NFL saw a nearly 30 percent decrease in viewership during the first prime-time Sunday game of the season on NBC.
The Dallas Cowboys lost 20-17 to the Los Angeles Rams in a “Sunday Night Football” game that was marketed as a must-see.
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Despite having “America’s Team” facing off against a team from the country’s second-largest TV market in what turned out to be a nail- biter, the NFL game was a ratings disappointment, Deadline Hollywood reported Monday.
The game earned an initial 4.7 among the key advertiser demographic of ages 18-49 and attracted a total of 14.81 million viewers based on early Nielsen data, the report said.
That is an abysmal showing.
Those early numbers represent a 28 percent decrease in the key demo and a 23 percent drop in total viewership when compared with 2019’s “SNF” season opener in which the New England Patriots walloped the Pittsburgh Steelers 33-3 in Foxborough, Deadline reported.
It’s also a big tumble from the game’s recent high for Sunday night on NBC.
A Sept. 30, 2019, matchup between the New Orleans Saints and the Cowboys attracted 24.7 million viewers, which was the most-watched “Sunday Night Football” game since 2016, according to The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
Less than a year later, a Sunday night game featuring the Cowboys drew in almost 10 million fewer viewers, based on early figures.
Many fans, who are in their sixth month of a global pandemic and have witnessed nationwide civil unrest since May, didn’t tune in Sunday, despite the return of the country’s most popular sport to TV.
It wouldn’t be a stretch to say the NFL’s decision to embrace leftist political activism and anti-police sentiment — including encouraging protests during the national anthem and airing a separate “national anthem” for black Americans — was largely responsible for the decline in interest in the Sunday prime-time game.
That activism was on display Sunday night in Inglewood, a day after two police officers were ambushed and shot Saturday in nearby Compton:
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