Just R-E-L-A-X about the NFL R-A-T-I-N-G-S
Despite early stumbles, the NFL is going to be just fine
Through the first six weeks of the 2016 season, the overwhelming conversation surrounding the NFL has been about one thing: Ratings.
And rightfully so. Just a year ago, sports media journalists extolled the NFL’s stranglehold on live viewership, saying the “NFL’s TV ratings showed no sign of slowing down” as more people watched the NFL games in 2015 than every before. And yet, through the first six weeks of the 2016 season, the NFL ratings are down ~11% y-o-y for marquee matchups which has even a few owners befuddled. But worry not, my affluent septuagenarian friends.
If there is one certainty along with death and taxes, it’s that the NFL still rules and will continue to rule live media and viewership in the United States for the foreseeable future.
While the ratings impact of competing with the 2016 election, shift to multi-platform viewership, changing of the guard of NFL superstars and flaws in Nielsen’s own ratings methodology cannot be denied, I believe that these roadblocks are mostly temporary in the NFL’s path of continued dominance.
I should note this early: As my byline will tell you, I worked in financial planning, strategy and business development for the NFL for the 2012 through 2014 seasons. While I believe this will help me add some unique perspective on the health of the NFL business, I’ll make it clear that my views are not influenced, associated or endorsed by my former colleagues or employer.
Also, throughout this post I’m going to quote viewership as my yardstick as opposed to the common household rating share number, so if you’re totally lost on how ratings work, here’s a primer.
Mostly Temporary, Somewhat Stupid Reasons (in No Particular Order)
2016 Presidential Clown Show/Election: This is the most obvious reason and there is actual data showing that the election has taken viewers away from the NFL. ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” went up against the first presidential debate which was the most watched in U.S. history with more than 80 million viewers. Against the second presidential debate, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” saw a big drop off once the debate started and then a rebound once it ended.
Elections always hurt the NFL at least a little bit but a +10% drop is unprecedented. Then again, so is the extent of this fit-for-reality-TV election and there may actually be precedent for audiences tuning into debates that are more entertainment than politics: 2008’s most-watched debate wasn’t one of the three between Obama-McCain (who got a peak of 63.2M viewers in the 2nd) but actually between Biden-Sarah Palin in the VP debates which got 69.9M viewers. When you don’t know what will come out of a candidate’s mouth, the debate becomes way more entertaining and meaning football can wait. By the way, that ’08 VP debate was on a Thursday, but in a simpler time, when Thursday Night Football started in November instead of September.
Kneeling Down and Tuning out in Protest: In far right corners of the internet, you may hear theories that the ratings drop is caused enmass by inflamed nationalist “defenders” of the Stars and Stripes unhappy with the NFL for not chastising Colin Kaepernick and his ilk as they protest the National Anthem. To entertain its impact on a large scale is wasting my time and yours but as far as the League and media are concerned, “no analysis exists to support claims of a boycott” per Variety’s Daniel Holloway
Likewise, attendance certainly hasn’t suffered Kaepernick’s protests at all. Average NFL attendance data shows that attendance rose slightly from 68,274 in 2015 fans per game to 68,630 in 2016. Last year, the percentage of tickets sold was 96.7 percent; this year, it is 96.8 percent meaning fans are going to games whether Kaepernick is kneeling or not. Also the 49ers are 12th in NFL attendance in 2016, the same as last year. Move along. Nothing to see here.
Not Your Daddy’s NFL: Despite being a consummate team sport, storylines around the NFL are always superstar driven. Unfortunately, a lot of those stars have been absent of late. From the retirements of Sunday staples like Peyton Manning, Marshawn Lynch and Calvin Johnson to the early (and potentially) season long absences of household names like Tony Romo, JJ Watt, Dez Bryant & Adrian Petersen (to whatever that Tom Brady guy was doing for 4 weeks) there has been a notable lack of star power for sports media and general fandom to get excited about in the early games.
I think the problem is more about a changing of the guard when it comes to NFL personalities. This is just the season where fans adjust and move on from Peyton Manning so they can fully embrace Cam Newton. The 2016 NFL has exciting QBs like Jameis Winston, Carson Wentz, Dak Prescott and (when the Jets trade for him) Jimmy Galluppolio (sp?). Plus we finally have a return of Diva receiver antics like Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham Jr. and Martellus Bennett not seen since the halcyon days of Terrell Owens, Cris Carter, Chad Ochocino and Randy Moss. So stop worrying and go get your popcorn ready.
Don’t Twerk On Me: The “No Fun League” crackdown on endzone celebrations is one of those things everyone wants to complain about and everyone says will stop them from watching the NFL but it has even less of an impact on the ratings than Kaepernick’s kneeling. This is a non-issue as far as ratings are concerned. Twerk on, Mr. Brown.
It’s Not On TV… It’s In the Game: The meteoric rise and popularity of eSports and Electronic Gaming over the last 5 years cannot be denied, with viewership numbers rivaling some NHL and MLB games. Newzoo recently published that 76% of eSports fans say “their e-sports viewing is taking away from hours they used to spend on viewing sports” with the number of hours spent watching video games up from 115M in 2015 to 144M in 2016. But even they’ll admit that the impact of eSports on the NFL is still negligible. For one thing, 56 percent of football fans are older than 35, while 73 percent of all e-sports fans are younger than 35 so one demo isn’t exactly killing the other and just over 8.7 million fans consider themselves enthusiasts of both the NFL and eSports. If anything, eSports is impacting sports with more games and higher saturation like the NHL and MLB. Competitive gaming will have its day but that day is still not Sunday.
So… What’s Actually Going to Have A Long Term Ratings Impact?
Consumers Left To Their Own Devices: The NFL is finally embracing digital media distribution, even for live content, as evidenced by recent landmark deals with first Yahoo then YouTube, Snapchat and Twitter. There are going to be significant growing pains as far as ratings are concerned, however. The Commish himself has cited “the way fans consume” as a factor, with NFL content now distributed multi-channel and multi-platform and cord-cutting steady on the rise, especially among the networks’ key 18–34 demographic.
Nielsen ratings are an archaic metric for advertisers and it’s frankly mind boggling to me that something more accurate and comprehensive hasn’t come along in the last decade
In fact the Leagues’ four major telecast partners sold a total of $2.5 Billion in ad inventory on the promise of NFL audience but they make that judgement based on Nielsen’s flawed data gathering techniques? Live TV has been evolving and with it, how we measure viewership across platforms and ascribe ratings for advertisers must evolve too.
Commercial Fatigue: Is there too much football on TV? There are certainly too many commercials.
With the increase in the number of Thursday Night Football and the Sunday 9:30AM EST London games, come opportunities for more prime time/marquee games and yet somehow, that hasn’t felt like more football action. The games are getting longer and each 3+ hour game has over 100 commercials but only 12 minutes where the ball is actually in play. I assume the rest of the time is made up of replays as well as Phil Sims saying “we talked about” or mispronouncing the word “him” as EEEEEM.
The NFL is a sport perfectly engineered for the modern commercial era and yet, consumers are actively moving to post-commercial consumption. content both in sports and broader media via Netflix, Hulu, Spotify and HBO Go. The popularity of products like NFL GamePass and Redzone make it even clearer that commercials are a consistent problem and stoppages in game play are turnoffs for viewers. NYU Prof. Scott Galloway has an apt saying:
Advertising is becoming a tax only poor people pay. The rich have already opt’d out.
NFL fans already shell out for popular products like NFL Redzone and many pay for ESPN and NFL Network as an add on to existing packages through their Cable/ISPs. In an ideal world, we do away with middle men and I just pay the NFL a fixed monthly subscription for shorter, more action packed games. Until then, I’ll suffer through The Worst Family in America with you.
The Laundry (and Bodies) On The Field: The last decade of the NFL has brought a host of questions about the officiating of the game and the health of its players. As a result, the NFL has taken many actions to curtail hits to the head, have referees remove players suspected of concussions and unsportsmanlike conduct, while adding more automatically review able plays like turnovers and touchdowns. As a result, the game has:
- More reviews, making is slower
- More injuries as players aim for knees instead of heads
- More confusion, because we don’t know what constitutes catch
Now,I started working at the NFL on the heels of the ‘Replacement Ref’ crisis and learned very quickly how difficult it was for the NFL to convince the Referee Union and the viewing public, that they were actually in the right. The moment they said “Touchdown Seahawks” the NFL caved and all the important issues that should have been addressed about NFL refereeing went out the window. For one thing, NFL Referees should be and still aren’t full-time, even if Ed Hercules wants you to think there is no practical difference.
Lest I forget, its not all the referees. The players look for any way to gain an advantage over their opponent and some even get away with it. NFL players today are bigger and stronger and play the game faster each year. The increase in prominent injuries has often been tied to the shortened practice times under the CBA but I think a weight limit on players might actually help cut down on injuries and concussions. The increase in force of a 260lb DE hitting you and a 300LB DE hitting you at the exact same speed is literally decided by a physics equation.
In either case, how the NFL legislates the game and how its referees enforce that legislation over the coming years is going to have significant reverberations on the level of play, the popularity of the sport, the relability of viewership and ultimately, its ratings.
Don’t Call it a Comeback, They’ve Been Here for Years
That said, The NFL will be fine. I repeat. The NFL will be fine.
In fact, it already looks like the ratings are coming back. Despite major competition from the return of AMC’s The Walking Dead, yesterday’s Sunday Night Football snoozefest featuring a 6–6 overtime tie between the Seahawks and Cardinals drew in 13.6MM viewers and was up 22% over last week’s Texans-Colts, which set a five-year low. In fact, I realize I’ve only been talking about prime time games but that’s because the ratings for Sunday afternoon games is actually negligible drop or in Fox’s case, actually a Week 6 boost because of two strong match ups (Packers-Cowboys and Eagles-Redskins).
How about the popularity of the NFL product? Well it’s doing fine too.
Meanwhile, NFL Digital Media continues to push ahead with successful content production, distribution and promotion partnerships. Consumer products continue to sell well with Nike extending its massive on-field apparel deal through the 2019 season. And across the pond, the ratings for the UK games were up a staggering 80% through Week 4 with 9.8MM viewers in the UK , the NFL’s International Game Pass product continues to be popular and the league has sold out every one of its London games to date.
So while are there existential threats on the horizon for NFL ratings, I argue that the overblown panic over the decline in ratings (during an unprecedented election year) has more to do with degradation in the quality of how we cover sports media than it has to do with an actual problem with game.
In fact, I bet you $5 that tonight’s Monday Night Football game will do just fine in the ratings. Now then… whats tonight’s game again?
Shit. Maybe not.
Please leave me a comment below and let me know what you think of this article. If you feel there are more threats to the future of NFL Ratings that I neglected to mention, please let me know too. More importantly, please like and follow for more moderately well-informed rants on sports, media and technology!
