President Donald Trump’s stance against the repeated NFL player protests of the national anthem is costing the league — big time.
Across the NFL, attendance is suffering and television ratings are plummeting. Americans are voting with their wallets against the liberal sideshow the once-great league has become — and it could ultimately cost the NFL hundreds of millions of dollars.
On Monday, thousands of fans at the University of Phoenix booed as the Dallas Cowboys — lead by owner and Trump supporter Jerry Jones — took the field before the game and ceremoniously bent a knee to show solidarity with the players that regularly disgrace the American flag.
Trump himself weighed in on the protest —
The booing at the NFL football game last night, when the entire Dallas team dropped to its knees, was loudest I have ever heard. Great anger
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017
But while Dallas dropped to its knees as a team, they all stood up for our National Anthem. Big progress being made-we all love our country!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017
How are Americans responding?
By changing the channel and refusing to buy tickets. Increasingly empty stadiums across the NFL have left team owners very nervous —
Second half kickoff pic.twitter.com/sEQgbtfJIq
— Ann Killion (@annkillion) September 10, 2017
Fans aren’t staying home to watch the games, either. While ratings data for the NFL pregame shows have been up across the major networks — ESPN, CBS, Fox, and NBC — the overall ratings for the games themselves have been in a free-fall.
According to Trump, Americans are tuning in… and as soon as they see the flag being disgraced by a bunch of multimillionaire athletes, they’re quickly changing the channel.
Ratings for NFL football are way down except before game starts, when people tune in to see whether or not our country will be disrespected!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 26, 2017
The overall ratings hit has been steep, Deadline Hollywood reported.
“In metered market numbers, the primetime matchup that saw the Washington Redskins beat the Oakland Raiders 27-10 snared an 11.6/20, the worst [Sunday Night Football] has performed this season so far. It’s an 8% dip from the early numbers of last week’s game, Atlanta’s 34-23 win over Green Bay.”
“Amid cheers and boos from fans at FedEx Field in Maryland last night, the third week of the SNF season declined 10% from early numbers of the comparable game of last year on September 25, 2016,” Deadline Hollywood said.
This is particularly alarming for network executives, because 2016 saw a huge decline in ratings for the league as well.
Networks that partnered with the league collected a staggering $4.2 billion in advertising revenue last year. Then, with ratings unexpectedly low, the NFL actually forced these television networks to reimburse 20% of the sold advertising.
Watching ratings that were already down in 2016 plummet another 10% across the board in 2017 could have advertisers pulling their money completely — or even networks refusing to air games.
Investors have noticed the trend — and like the rest of us, they’re not happy.
In fact, the value of the networks airing NFL games has taken a beating.
“During the past month the overall stock market is up more than 2% but shares of companies that broadcast NFL games — Comcast, Walt Disney, Fox, CBS — are all down between 1% to 8%,” Forbes reported.
There are a lot of people being paid a lot of money to air NFL games — but without viewers, the golden goose is no longer laying her eggs.
Should the NFL fire players that kneel during the national anthem?
Vote here --
— The Horn editorial team