Earlier this week we brought you the news that NFL ratings crashed in all four Wild Card games this past weekend. That news, came on the heels of last week’s story which showed that the NFL’s ratings for 2017 were down by 10 percent.
One would think that double-whammy of awful news, would cause the NFL’s commissioner some degree of heightened anxiety. However, listening to Roger Goodell talk about it, it sounds like everything is just fine.
Speaking to reporters while in Florida for the Jaguars-Bills game, Goodell stressed how dominant the NFL is on television.
“We always want ratings to go up, but we’re 37 of the top 50 shows, which is higher than ever. I think dominance of the NFL in television is still very clear.”
Goodell also touted the league’s featured Sunday afternoon and primetime games, which frequently outperform other television shows.
”We’re likely to be the number one show on Fox, excuse me on all of television, the Fox Sunday afternoon game. Sunday night, primetime for the seventh year in a row, the number one show. Thursday Night Football is number two.”
While Goodell is correct in that the NFL frequently beats all rival programming, that has been the case for years. Moreover, the ratings trend for the NFL is all pointing downwards. So how much longer will the NFL outperform rival programming, while their ratings continue to decline?
One would think the NFL postseason-the most important time on the league’s calendar-would be a logical turning point where the NFL could reverse its downward trend. Perhaps that reversal will come this weekend in the Divisional round. The NFL better hope so, because it sure didn’t happen in the Wild Card round.