The anti-American protests are eroding the NFL.
Fans are boycotting the league and driving down stadium revenue and apparel sales.
And sagging TV ratings are causing a massive problem for Fox Sports that will have a far-reaching negative impact.
Due to a huge loss in ad revenue, Fox Sports will be forced to lay off employees and scale down their coverage of Super Bowl 52.
From Breitbart:
Budget cuts are looming for Fox Sports as a result of the millions in lost advertising revenue for the NFL over the last two seasons, a report says.
Fox Sports’ Los Angeles staffers are dreading the upcoming layoffs and budget cuts due to disappointing NFL advertising revenue so far this season, according to Sporting News.
One cutback may affect FS1 stars Skip Bayless and Shannon Sharpe, as well. With NBC having won the upcoming Super Bowl, it is being reported that Fox won’t send its top name staffers to broadcast from Minnesota for Super Bowl 52. Fox will keep its broadcasters and crew home and save the cash it would have spent by sending its top stars to Minneapolis.
This is a departure from the previous Super Bowl when the whole Undisputed TV team was sent to cover Super Bowl 51. Fox Sports also sent several teams from its other programs to NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas.
But with ad revenue continuing to fall due to fan disinterest, and mounting boycotts, Fox Sports will be slashing its spending targets.
As Sporting News reported:
“Through Week 13, the ‘NFL on Fox’s’ average TV audience fell 12 percent to 17.4 million viewers from the same period in 2016. The TV audience for the network’s ‘America’s Game of the Week’ between the Saints and Panthers on Dec. 3 plummeted 20 percent to 20.2 million viewers. To illustrate the strength of NFL programming, however, the telecast still ranked as the most-watched program of the week on TV, according to the network.”
“The NFL has lost roughly 1 in 5 viewers since 2015, according to Nielsen,” Sporting News added.
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Fox Sports is hardly alone in feeling the NL pinch. ESPN just laid off another 150 employees only months after firing 100 early in 2016. That brings the number of employees fired since 2015 to over 550.
ESPN employees are not the only ones at the cable sports network feeling a loss this year. The latest statistics reported found that ESPN had lost 480,000 more subscribers in October alone.
The NFL needs to regroup and strengthen its brand by showing it stands for patriotism, but the league would rather placate the protesters who disgrace the American national anthem while standing for the British and Mexican anthems.
The man with the power and influence to do something, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, has chosen to do nothing and was recently rewarded with a lucrative contract extension.
Under Goodell’s watch, the league has suffered some of the worst scandals in its history, and things seem to be speeding in the wrong direction.