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Wall Street is monitoring NFL ratings to assess broadcast stock pricing

Wall Street is keeping close tabs on ratings of NFL games. They are anticipating a continued
decline. And if the decline accelerates it may negatively impact their ratings of stocks in
the broadcast and media sector.

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2018/09/06/NFL-Season-Preview/Ratings-Analysts.aspx

From the article:

NFL ratings are "facing yet another brutal blitz this fall," and analysts note this season's ratings "could fall even faster as the league continues to grapple with a slew of ugly controversies that have turned off viewers."

"The downward trend in ratings is unavoidable -- even though NFL ratings are outperforming the broader TV market"
 
Wall Street is keeping close tabs on ratings of NFL games. They are anticipating a continued
decline. And if the decline accelerates it may negatively impact their ratings of stocks in
the broadcast and media sector.

https://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Issues/2018/09/06/NFL-Season-Preview/Ratings-Analysts.aspx

From the article:

NFL ratings are "facing yet another brutal blitz this fall," and analysts note this season's ratings "could fall even faster as the league continues to grapple with a slew of ugly controversies that have turned off viewers."

"The downward trend in ratings is unavoidable -- even though NFL ratings are outperforming the broader TV market"

To me, the controversies (anthem, brain injuries, constant tweaking of the rules) haven't decreased my interest in the NFL nearly as much as the overly conservative, mechanical style of play. The deep game is nearly extinct. Every game is choked with dump-offs to running backs -- some of whom make a mockery of the position by hardly ever taking a handoff and actually running the ball -- and quick shots to the sidelines. The games themselves drag on and on and on -- and the college games are even worse. Tuning in 2 1/2 hours after kickoff and finding the game only midway through the third quarter is not normal.

I'm not some ADHD millennial who's abandoned team spectator sports for the participatory rush of online gaming. I'm a boomer who's been following pro football since the AFL days and I simply find the game less interesting than I've ever found it. It has nothing to do who who kneels or stands, who's completely lost his marbles by age 45, or how many yards you have to kick an extra point from. The game is sick, and I have a feeling I'm not alone among a group that used to be among football's most loyal viewership in thinking this,
 
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/405765-trump-knocks-nfl-on-first-games-lower-ratings

And Now The President is going after the NFL again like Last year over ratings but the article considers app viewership as a factor in the NFL.

President Trump in a tweet on Sunday knocked the NFL over lower ratings for its first game of the season.

"Wow, NFL first game ratings are way down over an already really bad last year comparison," the president said, referring to last Thursday night's match-up between the Atlanta Falcons and Philadelphia Eagles. "Viewership declined 13%, the lowest in over a decade."

"If the players stood proudly for our Flag and Anthem, and it is all shown on broadcast, maybe ratings could come back? Otherwise worse!" he added.

Broadcast viewership for the game dropped by 13 percent, according to The Hollywood Reporter. The game also saw a 61 percent spike in online streaming viewership, the news outlet added.

Trump renewed his clash with the NFL after it released a statement Tuesday praising former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick for raising social justice issues.

"The social justice issues that Colin and other professional athletes have raised deserve our attention and action," NFL's executive vice president of communications and public affairs Jocelyn Moore said in the statement following Nike's decision to feature Kaepernick, who was the first to kneel during the national anthem, in a new ad campaign.

Kaepernick, who became a free agent at the end of the 2016 season, rose back to national prominence after Nike made him the face of its "Just Do It" ad campaign.
 
The fact is the "downward trend" isn't limited to football. It's not like baseball is replacing it, or even MSL.

You mean MLS. And if I'm not mistaken, England's Premier League, shown and relentlessly marketed by NBC and NBCSN, is actually doing better ratings-wise than our own domestic soccer league, whose teams are hamstrung by rules on payroll, number of foreign players and, in some cases, ownership that isn't putting a whole lot of effort or money into the club (think Bob Kraft and his afterthought New England Revolution).

As I said, traditional team sports mean less to millennials than they do to earlier generations. While the NBA, thanks to really good marketing of its stars, has avoided the steep declines of baseball and football, all team sports depend on aging boomers (and older) for a large portion of their viewership. The millennials who still have TV (and remember, this is the group that's doing the most cord cutting) don't have the time for a full 3-plus-hour game of football or baseball. Even 2-plus hours of basketball is pushing it.

Another factor in the NFL's decline in on-air viewing: the NFL's own Red Zone channel, which covers only the exciting parts of every game, a few minutes at a time, yet counts in the ratings for none of those games. I know it's a big thing with fantasy football players, and now with legal sports betting beginning its spread across the country, it will only continue to gain viewership.

The hard truth is that the good old days of sports television viewing are gone for good. The linear-TV, couch potato sports-fan generations (seniors, boomers, Gen X) are dying off or will be doing so at an accelerated rate soon.
 
The hard truth is that the good old days of sports television viewing are gone for good. The linear-TV, couch potato sports-fan generations (seniors, boomers, Gen X) are dying off or will be doing so at an accelerated rate soon.

The issue the team owners have to deal with is TV watchers vs. ticket buyers: Which is more important? From what I've been seeing, the owners care more about ticket buyers. They're working to get people in seats. The league cares about TV watchers. Attendance figures for the big successful teams are fine. They're building newer, bigger stadiums to attract people. That's where their focus is. Not attracting couch potatoes to the big networks.
 
The issue the team owners have to deal with is TV watchers vs. ticket buyers: Which is more important? From what I've been seeing, the owners care more about ticket buyers. They're working to get people in seats. The league cares about TV watchers. Attendance figures for the big successful teams are fine. They're building newer, bigger stadiums to attract people. That's where their focus is. Not attracting couch potatoes to the big networks.

they are actually downsizing the total capacity of stadiums for more suites and skyboxes
 
they are actually downsizing the total capacity of stadiums for more suites and skyboxes

But once again, the focus is on getting people into the stadium, and those suites are huge profit centers.

The NFL is NOT hurting for cash, regardless of the TV ratings.
 
I think CTListener makes some good points.

One thing I came to absolutely loathe about the NFL are the interminable delays
for challenge reviews. Honestly, I'd rather go back to the days when we knew they'd
get a certain percentage of calls wrong, but the game kept moving.
 
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