In regard to falling ratings, Vox Day says the NFL is dying
Vox is speaking too soon again, hyping things that either are non-existent or grossly exaggerated.
This is not the first time Vox has cried wolf:
“Patreon will be bankrupt in a year” (it was 6 months ago when Vox first began saying this. Given recent setbacks in Owen’s case, it is exceedingly unlikely Patreon has much to worry about. Vox later amended his prediction that Patreon has enough money to weather losing a lawsuit)
“The storm is coming” (was the ‘storm’ Covid? No thanks. I will pass.)
“Mass arrests” (yeah, like Bannon, Stone, etc. see a pattern?)
“Indiegogo will be bankrupted” (this was over a year ago; the website is still operational)
NFL ratings have been falling forever. The reason is, ratings tend to be oscillatory, going up and down within a predictable channel/band, much like a the patterns generated by an oscilloscope. In the sinusoidal function corresponding to NFL ratings, so every 2 years ratings ‘tank’ as the function goes from its peak to trough, as shown below.
So how does this compare to NFL kickoff ratings?
They have not fallen but are within the same range of 15-20 million viewers, the same it has been since 2007 or so, according to data compiled<.
For some resewn between 2008-2010 ratings saw a huge surge, and viewership has been riding on this plateau ever since, bouncing between 20-27 million viewers.
Overall, the data suggests hype about pro-BLM themes hurting the NFL, may be overblown. All-time NFL kickoff ratings peaked in 2015, and this was well-before BLM became such a big deal. There are other possible reasons to explain possible decline of viewership, such as the rise of Netflix. Even though I agree with Vox that the NFL should be neutral on the matter, it is not that big of a deal either. An NFL game typically lasts 3-4 hours, much of it ads and replays. The parts which Vox and other take offense to are minuscule by comparison. The commercials are much more likely to push a social-justice agenda than anything that happens during the game, and I think the commercials may be more to blame for driving away viewers, as opposed to the NFL and team owners pandering to BLM.