NFL Down 8% In Average Game Viewership Due To Sports TV Overload
- by Wayne Friedman , November 4, 2020
Halfway through the season, through eight weekends so far, the NFL has seen an 8% decline in Nielsen-measured viewership versus a year ago to 14.5 million viewers per game.
Analysts and network executives attribute the decline to an overload of sports TV competition due to the end-of-the-season NBA playoffs and finals and Major League Baseball’s World Series TV games.
In addition, issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic have forced a rescheduling of some Fox and CBS Sunday games from Sunday time slots to Monday or Tuesday night-time periods.
Through eight weekends, NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” is 17% lower to 16.1 million viewers.
ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” posted one of the better NFL TV franchise performances -- dropping just 1% to 11.2 million viewers.
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Comparing four games played so far this year to five games played a year ago, Fox/NFL Network’s “Thursday Night Football” has fallen 15% to 12.8 million viewers.
In 2019, through eight games, the NFL averaged 15.8 million -- up 6% versus the similar period during the 2018 season.
Through two months of the 2020 NFL season, iSpot.tv estimates national TV advertising spend is at $2.1 billion -- virtually the same as a year ago. iSpot.tv estimates that total NFL impressions are down 61.3 billion from 77.9 billion in 2019.
Wayne, we keep harping on average minute rating "losses" as if that was the key metric for advertisers. It isn't. Expect "ad spending" to keep rising for the NFL---and other pro sports---even though ratings willl continue to decline---due, in part to the atypical nature of the current games---no fans---and the normal rigors of audience fragmentation that affects all of TV---not just sports. More spending but lower ratings---how can this be? As they used to say in the Clinton years, "It's the intangibles, stupid."