The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

It's only getting worse for them since people on both sides are saying to boycott.

-----average TV audience (including Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, Monday night and Thursday night games) slid to 15.156 million viewers through Week 5 of the 2017 season. That’s down 7.42 percent from an average of 16.371 million viewers through the same period of the 2016 season, and 18 percent down from the average of 18.438 million viewers through the first five weeks of the 2015 season.[/i]

http://www.sportingnews.com/nfl/news/nfl-tv-television-ratings-down-numbers-national-anthem-protests/l2x7dhlkuubk1tbeftag9ttis

So they are down 18 percent over the last two years? That is a hell of a drop in any business. When your worth billions that is a ton of money.  I couldn't find any information on the amount of cancelled and refunded Sunday Tickets but that has to hurt as well.

I can't speak for everyone but I really think there is over saturation in the market right now. There are three nights of NFL games and an entire day on Sunday (especially if there is a London game) and when you tack on college football, MLB playoffs, and other sports (hockey just kicked off, soccer is in full swing, NASCAR, etc.). It is impossible for multi-sports fans to spend time watching all of that and still do productive things like clean the house, be with the family, enjoy your own activities, etc.

I love being able to watch my teams play but that will mean some of the other games I'm not vested in paying the price of not having my viewership, regardless of the matchup.

I'm not boycotting anything, but my general interest in making sure I am in front of a TV for the games has declined.  It's a combo of all kinds of things.

Both sides? Are you referring to the right...and the far right?

The whole "ratings are down" nonsense is so far out of whack that my first thought is that it must be a Presidential tweet. Ratings are certainly down a little bit because of these protests. After all, Conservative Trumpians watched football too, and if Trump says "shit," you say "on whose lap?"

The real reason for such a dramatic turn in the numbers is due to online streaming. It's why small companies like Yahoo and Amazon are paying out the ass for streaming rights. A healthy chunk of people who used to watch the NFL on TV are now streaming games instead (like me).

But yeah, if it makes you feel good to misrepresent a situation in the hopes of pissing on American citizens' civil rights, then go for it. It actually makes you seem more...Presidential?

What civil right are you referring to?

Hahaha have another toke and maybe things will clear up for you. Jamele Hill was suspended by ESPN for calling for a boycott of the NFL and their sponsors.  As far as I can tell she is about as far from the far right as you are with a passing drug test.

The make believe civil right that you can say or do anything at work without consequences.  In fact, having consequences for any bad decision you've made goes directly against some people civil rights. The government is supposed to rectify them. 

I better hurry up...if Sessions has his way (he won't), smoking pot will be punishable by life in prison.


I'm pretty sure the only "rights" you recognize are the alt.rights, so it would probably be a waste of my time to explain. If you hurry though, you might be able to catch up on the 400 tweets from your Idiot-in-chief today about how anything that disagrees with him is fake news.

I would like to see the ratings numbers for 2014 vs. 2015 so people can stop projecting their political causes on to the cord cutting phenomenon.

No need for you to enter a discussion if you aren't mentally equipped to discuss the topic at hand. Move along sir, you lose!

Very Trumpian of you...would you like to quote the yuge crowd size for your post?

That isn't even close. She was suspended for suggestion people boycott Dallas Cowboys sponsors if Jerry Jones followed through with plans on benching players who protested.

She is siding with the right to protest.

Why do you continue to discuss ME? This thread is about NFL audience numbers. If you can't control your emotions when people disagree with you maybe you should get your estrogen levels checked or something.

the whole ratings thing is silly. NFL ratings peaked, they were so high a few years back they only could go down. They weren't going to continue to go up as it would have almost been impossible to get climbing. Even with ratings down what 7% its still the highest rated thing on TV today by a mile. It's why every network fights to get games on them, it's why Verizon pays a boatload of money to stream a crappy Jags game in London to get exclusive rights to that. This whole thing of "ratings are down" is stupid. Yeah they are down but still by far the highest rated thing going today.

MNF went down another 6% last night so it's steadily declining. Baseball is declining as well so there is that ... but it seems pretty obvious that the NFL going political has hurt them just as it has ESPN. People want a distraction with sports and not have to deal with politics of the day.

According to the numbers cited, the NFL declined less from 2016 to 2017 than it did from 2015 to 2016.

So if you are determined to view ratings through the lens of politics, the increased political focus has slowed the NFL's rapid decline.  Just imagine how much worse the ratings would be without the widespread protests!

That's one game between two shit teams. It's so overblown its not even funny. Put Dallas vs New England on MNF and it will probably break all sorts of records. Yet we are supposed to go by a Colts-Titans game as the downfall of NFL TV ratings.  The NFL hasn't gone political at all, only if you are consumed with Trump and politics and want to fight every petty fight he wants to fight for him are you letting the NFL and politics ruin the games. The NFL is still the highest rated show on all of TV. If its down a few percentage points it doesn't' mean the sky is falling chicken little!  ::)

Spit in someones face while protesting and it doesn't matter what your protesting.  Many people believe disrespecting the national anthem is the same as spitting in the face of people who gave the ultimate sacrifice for this country.  People can say the spit wasn't mean to offend but to get your attention all they want but the fact remains the person spit on is only insulted and pissed. That anger started last year and Trump has nothing to do with that. The current argument that Trump is responsible is a stupid argument. Many people upset can't stand Trump.

And many people think those people (including many who served) served so that someone would have the freedom of speech to stand, kneel, sing along, etc.

I'd say way less think that.  In fact I read an article stating how come no players who believe in standing were invited to yesterdays meeting since the are the clear majority. Jacksonville heard such an uproar they have gone as far as to apologize to the city residents and the Navy who were offended by their kneeling in London.

The good thing about this country is you are free to do whatever you want but there are consequences.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Jacksonville Jaguars president Mark Lamping has apologized to the city of Jacksonville's director of military affairs chief and local military representatives for not fully understanding the potential impact of several players' decision to kneel during the national anthem before their Sept. 24 game against the Baltimore Ravens in London.
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/21052566/jacksonville-jaguars-president-apologizes-city-official-players-kneeling-national-anthem-london

I agree completely... Like taking insurance away from the poor and needy so you can give a bunch of your billionaire buddies massive tax cuts. Still waiting to see the consequences for that, but I do understand how you would prioritize a perceived slight to a piece of fabric over the lives of the people.

OK, I don't actually see how you could do that...

The key word is perceived. Many people would say that the players are protesting a perceived slight. Especially when facts and statistics say that in the US people killed by lightning are rare occurrences. But yet, lightning kills more people than unarmed blacks that are killed by law enforcement yearly. Especially when more Whites and Hispanics die from law enforcement than blacks yearly. In light of those facts, common sense would say that unarmed blacks killed by law enforcement is a rare occurrence. But then again, common sense doesn't account for the player's unfounded perceptions of reality.

Did I miss the lightning strikes protests?  Shit!!!! George Soros paid a lot of money for me to go to those.  He's gonna be so pissed at the next meeting all liberals attend.

Over the last decade, more people have been in the U.S. by lightning strikes than Islamic terrorists, yet Islamic terrorism is still perceived to be a major threat to the security of the republic.

Let us not compare things like weather events, or heart disease, or auto accidents - things which are not carried out with purpose by a human agent - to intentional violence that results in a loss of life.

Of course one is worse than the other in a sense. However, we are not comparing the outcome of said occurrences or moral equivalency. We are comparing rate of occurrence. If the numbers of both relative to population are on par with each other. And one is considered a rare occurrence, then by default the other is a rare occurrence. Likewise, if the rate of occurrence is considered rare, then there is no epidemic. How can one thing be rare and the other thing be an epidemic when the numbers for both are basically the same? Just because one is perceived bad and one is a natural random occurrence? Numbers don't work like that.

ummm ... Islamic terrorists killed almost 3000 on 9-11 and more have died since then with 9-11 illnesses. I think it's going to take a long time for lightning to catch up.

^^^What is 9-11 illness?

Cancer related things from the dust are what sticks out in my mind as well as some suicides but many other diseases too.

9/11’S SECOND WAVE: CANCER AND OTHER DISEASES LINKED TO THE 2001 ATTACKS ARE SURGING
http://www.newsweek.com/2016/09/16/9-11-death-toll-rising-496214.html

Lightning had more than a 200-year head start on killing Americans in this country.  Lightning has a huge lead and 9/11 barely made a dent.

SI did a story on the decline in ratings....
https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/19/nfl-ratings-decline-owners-players-meeting-mmqb (https://www.si.com/nfl/2017/10/19/nfl-ratings-decline-owners-players-meeting-mmqb)

This part down the article,IMO states pretty much how I feel (I think think the numbers are down based upon the protests are udder effin B.S.)
Now, it’s also important to understand that TV ratings across the board—not just sports—are dropping for a large number of reasons, mostly related to technology, the amount of options people have, and cord cutting.

In fact, one team executive looked at the numbers, and actually didn’t see them as all bad. He said, “I took away that compared to TV, the NFL is actually stronger year over year, compared to other programming. But the league does need to better understand how change in habits will affect ratings long-term.”

That said, this is an NFL that has grown used to having everything it touches land on a permanent upward trajectory in both profitability and popularity, so seeing any sort of decline is jarring to some of the guys in that room. And one of those people is Jones, who is nothing if not a master at understanding how to monetize anything you could possibly put in front of him.

Another part of the article

Again, no one is claiming that fights with the White House’s social media wing and players kneeling during the anthem are even close to the only reasons for the professional football model being shaken up a bit. But the fact is, that model has been shaken up a bit, and the league doesn’t sit on its hands waiting for situations like this to steady themselves.

Lightning strikes and 9/11 illnesses. Methinks the topic of the NFL's TV ratings has gone far afield...

Thanks for sharing that article, B...

Even with these so called "declining ratings".....the NFL signs record deal with Verizon

https://twitter.com/darrenrovell/status/940205400779042817

^ The Verizon deal is really difficult to evaluate. It isn't just an extension of a current deal, but a completely new deal that carves out a new market segment. The old deal only allowed Verizon to stream in-market games to mobile phones of Verizon customers. The new deal expands that to basically anyone with a tablet or a phone, covering all games that aren't exclusive to Sunday Ticket (in that market), including preseason, playoffs and the Super Bowl. Some reports even indicate that ANY web-connected device (including TVs) is covered by the deal (e.g. Variety):

"live-stream gridiron action to any mobile, web and connected-TV device nationwide under a new five-year pact with the league."

(source (http://variety.com/2017/digital/news/nfl-verizon-live-streaming-deal-1202635501/))

That would be a shocker, though, and I cannot see how the other rights holders would agree to this, so unless this starts being reported by everyone else, I would consider it very likely to be incorrect.

Additionally, Verizon gains access to certain non-game VoD content, including highlights and even original content.

Verizon does lose their streaming exclusivity status, although details on this are not available.

Overall, the deal broadens the number of devices that can receive NFL games while unlikely to hurt ratings among traditional rights-holders. For that Verizon is paying $400 million a year for 5 years (compared to $250 million a year for the old deal). In comparison, the NFL currently rakes in about $7 billion a year on its TV deals, so this is still small potatoes.