Conservatives are celebrating the overnight ratings decline of NBC’s Sunday Night Football, but a look inside the numbers reveals that ratings were down because the game was lopsided, and not related to the anthem protest.
Republicans saw the ratings decline as some sort of victory at Trump supporting sites like Breitbart and Infowars, but facts don’t match up with the fantasy that they are selling.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, “The NBC match-up between Oakland and Washington averaged an overnight 11.6 rating among households. The preliminary score, a low for this season, was down 11 percent from early scores the same night a year ago and 9 percent from the week before — albeit with a lopsided score that saw Oakland scoreless well into the second half and ultimately trounced 10-27. It’s not really bad news for the NFL, but it’s not great timing. On Friday night, President Donald Trump chose to target the league during an Alabama rally, saying that players who don’t kneel during the National Anthem should be fired.”
The problem for Sunday Night Football wasn’t the national anthem protest, but that the game got out of hand relatively early, and was not competitive. A close football game would have resulted in more viewers watching. It is all about the product on the field. Good football games equal higher ratings.
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Sunday Night Football is averaging more than 22 million viewers a week, so if this is what Republicans have been reduced to calling winning under Trump, their situation is even more pathetic than anyone could have imagined.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
