The Week 14 edition of Sunday Night Football represented one of the NFL’s last chances to right the ship, and prevent a large amount of coal from being delivered into their stocking just before Christmas.
Well, that didn’t happen.
Not only did that not happen, the NFL turned in a great game with two very viable playoff teams and ended up with a disastrous rating.
The Week 14 SNF tilt between the Ravens and the Steelers ended up a 39-38 victory for Pittsburgh. However, the game was down 30% in the ratings from last year’s Week 14 match-up between the Giants and Cowboys.
Overall, the game earned an 11.6 rating. Good enough to win the night for NBC, as normally happens whenever a network hosts an NFL game. However, according to The Hollywood Reporter “…even with such a tight match-up, this week’s marquee primetime game was down 11 percent” from last week.
Throw these awful numbers in with the rest of the awful primetime numbers for the NFL this year. Plus the league’s well-advertised attendance problem, and it’s easy to understand why networks like Fox sports are unable to afford to send people to the Super Bowl this year, due to revenue losses from the NFL.
But not everyone in the NFL is losing money. Commissioner Roger Goodell signed a new contract last week, worth up to $200 million. Makes you wonder how much they would pay if Goodell was actually good at his job?