Week 2 Sunday Night Football Ratings Plunge 17% From Week 1’s Already “Steep Decline”

We had already documented that Week 1 NFL ratings saw a “steep decline” from last year’s comparable ratings. In an article we published about a week ago, we questioned whether or not that could have something to do with the NFL focusing more on politics than – well, actually playing football.

Week 2 saw no respite for the NFL. Last Sunday’s Seahawks versus New England Patriots game – one of the premier matchups in all of the NFL – saw only 12.22 million viewers on NBC, according to the Daily Caller. 

The numbers mark a 17% decline from Week 1, which saw roughly 7 million viewer plunge from Week 1 of the 2019 season.

As we noted, Week 1’s Sunday night’s game also featured popular teams: “America’s Team” – the Dallas Cowboys, and the newly moved Los Angeles Rams. 

But the game posted a 4.7 among the key Adult 18-49 demographic with 14.81 million viewers. For comparison, last year’s Patriots vs. Steelers Sunday night opener had 22.2 million viewers. This total was generally in-line with the opener the year before, indicating that even with West Coast viewers factored in, this season’s ratings have been decimated. 

The Daily Caller took their best shot at explaining what the issue could be: “It no longer feels like the NFL is about winning and losing games. It feels like it’s about lecturing fans around the clock. Average Americans don’t want to be lectured by millionaire athletes. They just don’t!”

And as we asked about 10 days ago: what could the NFL be doing wrong?