Sunday night’s Super Bowl will be considered by its advertisers as Super Bust this year. The game kept those that were watching interested, but the problem for the NFL was the audience was meager.
Ever since players began kneeling during the national anthem, viewership has dramatically slipped for the once-invincible National Football League. The minority of players who have participated in the so-called protest have eviscerated the TV ratings.
The self-proclaimed “social justice warriors” argued they were bringing their undisclosed protests to the people. ESPN took advantage of the situation to politicize their sports broadcasts to their own detriment. The idea has completely backfired with the network’s lowest ratings in a decade and the laying off or firing of hundreds of employees.
NFL ratings and ticket sales have taken a dramatic downward turn. The Super Bowl culminated a horrific year for the league with the lowest ratings in nearly a decade.
It began the downward spiral at the beginning of the 2017 season. The number that really matters right now is the 47.4/70 in metered market ratings that Sunday’s Super Bowl delivered. Dipping by a slight Three percent from the earliest numbers of last year’s Patriots’ 34-28 comeback victory over the Atlanta Falcons.
Sunday’s game is looking to be the eighth highest-rated Super Bowl ever. With more streaming options than ever this year, last night’s game is up nine percent in metered market results compared with when the Patriots and Eagles last clashed in the NFL title game, at Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005.
The downside is Sunday’s Super Bowl saw a decline of five percent in metered market results from the last time NBC had the big game. Sunday’s game peaked in the high-stakes fourth quarter with a 52.2/74.
