Football season officially started last week, but the NFL’s opening night failed to bring in the numbers they wanted—ratings were down for the fourth year in a row. Deadline reports:
With 21.8 million NFL fans tuning in, the kickoff of the 2017 regular season was down 13% for the NFL and NBC from last year’s opener. Not only does that represent a very real smack down for the league and the net coming off a previous season that saw double-digit declines in its early months, but it is the worst an opening game has done since 2009.
It’s hard to know why the ratings have declined. The game definitely had a lot of competition for attention—the nation was consumed with news of both Hurricane Harvey and Hurricane Irma. However, it’s hard to not wonder whether calls to boycott the NFL for its teams’ retaliation against Colin Kaepernick and/or increased information about the impact of brain injury on players contributed to the decline.