The 2020 NFL season is already off to a rocky start.
The Wuhan virus means that the current season is constantly in jeopardy.
And now the NFL just got some disastrous news about their ratings.
The optics of empty stadiums is not a good look for the NFL.
Coronavirus restrictions means fans can’t pack stadiums in large numbers and provide energy to the game.
The lack of crowds also hurts the viewing experience on television, and that was reflected in the ratings.
The opening Sunday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and Los Angeles Rams tanked in viewership compared to last year.
According to Deadline:
“Even with the usual ratings gold of Jerry Jones’ team on the field, the NFL and NBC didn’t get that win – at least not in the early numbers. Despite two teams with big national followings, SNF snared a 4.7 in early ratings among adults 18-49 and 14.81 million viewers last night.
In numbers certain to change, that’s a fall of 28% in the demo and a hard decline of 23% in sets of eyeballs from the early numbers of the September 8, 2019 SNF season debut.”
That’s a steep decline from last year’s season opener.
In addition to the coronavirus problems, viewership is also being adversely affected by the NFL’s full embrace of wokeness.
It turns out that fans do not like to see the national anthem protested.
Even the Dallas Cowboys had a player kneel for the anthem for the first time.
The NFL is dangerously following in the footsteps of the NBA, which has seen dismal ratings numbers for the playoffs inside “the bubble” in Orlando, Florida.
The NBA players went full woke and even boycotted a playoff game over their frustration with the shooting of alleged rapist Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin.
Rioting predictably followed in Kenosha, and three Antifa terrorists were shot by 17-year-old Kyle Rittenhouse who was defending stores from being burned down.
Coincidentally, Fox News host Tucker Carlson, who has enjoyed ratings higher than actual NBA games, dispelled all of the left’s lies about Rittenhouse.
The NFL and NBA have pledged themselves to the woke left, and they’re driving off fans who actually care about sports.
The two leagues have partnered up with Black Lives Matter, which was a grave mistake.
Black Lives Matter is a Marxist movement, and the majority of Americans simply aren’t on board with that.
Football fans are a segment of the population that would be least likely to support a Marxist takeover of the United States.
Yet the NFL and NBA have “Black Lives Matter” plastered everywhere.
The NFL’s ratings will only continue to crash if they insist on rubbing wokeness in the faces of the fans.
The league barely recovered from the height of the anti-American anthem protests in 2017 and 2018.
The NFL might not be able to recover this time.
