{"id":214548,"date":"2016-09-30T19:41:04","date_gmt":"2016-09-30T23:41:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/172.24.32.11\/daily\/2016\/09\/30\/the_many_reasons_behind_the_nfl_ratings_decline\/"},"modified":"2016-09-30T19:41:04","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T23:41:04","slug":"the_many_reasons_behind_the_nfl_ratings_decline","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/admin.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2016\/09\/30\/the_many_reasons_behind_the_nfl_ratings_decline\/","title":{"rendered":"The Many Reasons Behind the NFL Ratings Decline"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Listen<\/a> <\/p>\n

\n

RUSH: Here\u2019s Mark in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as we get back to the phones.  Hey! What\u2019s happening? <\/p>\n

CALLER:  Good day, Rush.  Hey, last week or two weeks ago when you were talking about the NFL, their viewership being down, I think you didn\u2019t complete the analysis.  First of all, let\u2019s say there are a lot of great men in the NFL.  You see that every year when they have the Walter Payton Awards, that people really do good.  But we always hear about the thugs and the bad guys.  <\/p>\n

So when the NFL turns down the Dallas Cowboys, not giving them permission to put the sticker on their helmets to honor the five slain officers, that really left a bad taste in my mouth.  And then when you watch the beginning of a football game, they\u2019re doing the anthem, and they highlight those people who are kneeling or putting their fists up.  Personally, I wish they wouldn\u2019t do that.  Don\u2019t give them that platform.  You know, you want me as a viewer, you know, you\u2019re not looking after my feelings. <\/p>\n

RUSH:  Let me tell you something about that.  Normally, television doesn\u2019t televise the anthem.  We never see the anthem!  We\u2019re never seen the anthem except at the Super Bowl.  We never see it. <\/p>\n

CALLER:  Right. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

RUSH:  All of a sudden, we\u2019re seeing the anthem. Every time one of those guys takes a knee or raises a fist, by God, we\u2019re gonna see it! We\u2019re gonna see highlights of the anthem, and we do. <\/p>\n

CALLER:  And then they\u2019re naming these guys. Like I said, they\u2019re giving them a platform.  You know, the NFL is putting a bad taste in people\u2019s mouths by allowing the networks to do that and by not… You know, why couldn\u2019t they honor those officers?  Give us a good explanation. <\/p>\n

RUSH:  Well, don\u2019t make me explain that.  Come on. You can come up with that on your own.  If I explain that, they\u2019ll Alicia Machado me — meaning they\u2019ll “Trump” me.<\/p>\n

BREAK TRANSCRIPT<\/p>\n

RUSH:  The subject of NFL ratings. Now, there\u2019s a lot going on in the NFL to its detriment.  I\u2019ve been amazed by much of it.  Much of the harm being done in the NFL is actually being transmitted by sports media, which can go either way.  I mean, on the one hand, you can say they are doing their job.  On the other hand they are literally attacking the hand that feeds them, in many ways.  Understand the sports Drive-Bys are every bit the leftist radicals that their brethren in the so-called straight news media are.  <\/p>\n

Now, the NFL, as far as what it\u2019s officially saying about the ratings decline, is to really not acknowledge it except to say that they think there have not been great marquee matchups. They\u2019ve gone on to say they\u2019ve been up against a different kind of competition, the presidential campaign. They\u2019re blaming presidential politics for a lot of this, and indeed, on Monday night, the Saints and the Falcons Monday night game had the lowest Monday Night Football audience in years, decades, actually.  <\/p>\n

But it also must be pointed out that even though the NFL\u2019s numbers are down, they\u2019re still dwarfing traditional broadcast television.  But nobody likes a downward trend in numbers because at the NFL\u2019s level, at these networks\u2019 level they\u2019re looking at make goods or free commercials for sponsors. If you\u2019re guaranteeing a certain audience and you\u2019re charging X-amount per commercial on the guarantee of an audience, if that audience isn\u2019t there, you owe the sponsor a make-good, free commercials or reduced rates for the rest of the flight to make up for what you\u2019re not delivering that you promised.  And at those levels that\u2019s a big deal.  <\/p>\n

So it can end up being expensive for the broadcast networks that are paying for the nose for the rights to broadcast these games.  So it\u2019s in nobody\u2019s interests to be lackadaisical about this decline.  What\u2019s fascinating is to listen to people talk about it and not even mention what are likely the real culprits here.  I could list a bunch of things that I think might be contributing to a decline in ratings the NFL.  And I think there are a lot.  And I think it\u2019s been slowly developing.  <\/line><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t think the ratings decline, even though it\u2019s showing up this year, is strictly because of things happening this year.  I think, as you know, if you\u2019ve been a regular listener to this program, these things have been trending.  And they are many.  I think the overall apparent — let me give a real-world example.  The playoff game this past January between the Steelers and the Bengals. Now, to many people it was great TV, it was a great game.  You had action. You had an unexpected outcome. The Steelers coming back and winning after being down with no time left to actually come back on the field.  It was only because of personal foul penalties committed by the Bengals that ended up putting the Steelers in field goal range to kick a field goal to win the game.  <\/p>\n

They had no business winning the game.  It was one of the most outrageous losses I have ever seen.  It should have been embarrassing. It should have gotten people fired. It should have gotten people reprimanded.  It was an absolute disaster for the Cincinnati Bengals organization.  They hadn\u2019t been to the playoffs since 1991 and they were destined to go, and what happened, because of on-field behavior, both during play and outside play. In other words, teams are standing around while penalties are being marked off and players are whining and moaning to the ref and one of them had made contact with the ref.  That\u2019s another 15 yards.  <\/p>\n

There were 30 yards in penalties, an unnecessary roughness hit on a defenseless receiver to the head, and then a cornerback, Adam “Pacman” Jones complaining with the referees about something and touched one of them, that\u2019s another 15 yards.  I think viewers see this kind of thing and this is not the kind of football they want to watch.  <\/p>\n

The people that advocate for it, “It\u2019s great TV, man, great TV, and it was great hitting,” but it wasn\u2019t football.  It looked like something you see not on the football field, and it makes people nervous.  This is a slow build.  That one game, that one incident, there is no one game or one incident that\u2019s gonna be responsible for the decline.  <\/p>\n

The league, at the same time, you fans, I\u2019m sure, note all the suspensions.  You can look at that one of two ways.  You can say that the league is going overboard here on penalizing these players for putting performance enhancing drugs in their bodies or human growth hormone, and you can think the league is being too restrictive here.  <\/p>\n

The other way of looking at it is, are there this many cheaters in this game?  Are there this many guys violating the rules?  And what that does is make people question the legitimacy of what they see on the field.  You know what one of the biggest arguments in football is what the heck is a catch anymore.  I don\u2019t know about you, but I don\u2019t like waiting five minutes for a referee to review video to declare something was a catch or not when it clearly looked like it was to the naked eye and even in the replay. But there\u2019s this rule, “Well, it didn\u2019t maintain control through the play.”  <\/p>\n

The number of replays and the length of time they take coupled with the commercial breaks, depending on the game you can see three plays take 10 minutes.  You score a touchdown, commercial break. Extra point, commercial break.  Kickoff, commercial break.  So you have three plays there and you\u2019ve got at least eight minutes of commercials.  Slow, little things.  <\/p>\n

Now you add to it Colin Kaepernick and the open disrespect for America.  I don\u2019t care what you think about how great that is, how honorable that is, what great free speech it is, what great civil protest it is, this is not what people want to see.  This is not why they tune in.  They don\u2019t tune in to a football game to be told how rotten their country is.  They don\u2019t want to hear it.  <\/line><\/p>\n

They hear that every day elsewhere in their lives.  They don\u2019t want to hear it Sunday afternoon, Sunday night, or Monday night, now Thursday night.  It\u2019s a number of things that I think are accumulating.  The suspensions of star players.  Deflategate.  Look, a lot of people think it was a legitimate suspension \u2019cause it\u2019s the Patriots, and everybody thinks and knows they cheat.  Other people think, “My God, you took your biggest star off the field for four weeks!”   <\/p>\n

The NFL\u2019s a television show — that\u2019s what it is — and the NFL is a stage.  Those fields, those stadiums are stages, and the NFL owns the stage.  Now you have players trying to commandeer the stage that they didn\u2019t build. That\u2019s for their own purposes, political purposes, nothing to do with the game.  The NFL has made no bones about its devotion to America and its patriotism with so many big American flags on display and military groups participating in the national anthem and God Bless America. <\/p>\n

Now the focus is on a bunch of players who are making millions of dollars talking about how oppressed they are in the greatest country on earth, and it\u2019s not washing with a bunch of people.  So it\u2019s not just one thing.  It\u2019s a trend that is occurring with a whole lot of elements in it.  But you can\u2019t read sports media today — you cannot read it — without endless stories on player here or player there accused of some crime or violating some NFL rule, abusing women, driving under the influence. Whatever it is. <\/p>\n

It may be no greater percentage of the NFL than any other population group. But it\u2019s being heralded! I mean, it\u2019s being really pointed out. Then you\u2019ve got to add to this the media doesn\u2019t like the commissioner, and so they think everybody should hate the commissioner, and so they\u2019ve kind of done to Goodell what they did to George W. Bush.  Now, I\u2019m not gonna weigh in.  Whether Goodell deserves to be hated by the fans is beside the point now. He is, whether he deserves to be or not.  <\/p>\n

The media would tell us that he\u2019s despised and hated because of the Ray Rice suspension.  “He didn\u2019t take it seriously enough.  Ray Rice slugged his wife in that elevator and dragged her out of there like Trump and Miss Machado, and he only got a six-week suspension!” They blew up, and so now Ray Rice got a full-year suspension; they had to come back to it.  For that one incident that started the ball rolling on how the Goodell is out of touch. <\/p>\n

I\u2019m telling you, the noteworthy news surrounding the NFL is not about great plays, it\u2019s not about great games anymore.  It\u2019s about all this off-field stuff.  And it\u2019s just not the kind of stuff that makes people want to tune in to see that we say gonna happen on the field every Sunday!  The reporting on the game has changed entirely.  You have this concussion stuff with all these stories now about parents that aren\u2019t gonna let their kids play football.  <\/line><\/p>\n

Any time now, because the sensitivity has been raised… Any time there is a collision on the field that involved head strikes and helmets, now the public (outraged), “My God, that\u2019s cheating! How bad! Throw those guys out of there!” It\u2019s totally change the way people watch the game, appreciate the game, understand how it\u2019s played.  I think they\u2019ve got huge problems here, and we\u2019re seeing the beginning here of what could be a major problem unless they get their hand on it, and I don\u2019t know that they know what their problems are.  <\/p>\n

Believe me, they\u2019re not helping themselves when they promote all of these players taking a stand against the United States by virtue of action they\u2019re taking with the flag and the national anthem.  They may think that\u2019s a great thing. They may think in 2016 America, as “culturally aware” as people are, and the divisive nature we face now in our culture, that that\u2019s really good; it shows the NFL is relevant and in touch with what\u2019s currently happening.  <\/p>\n

It\u2019s not why people watch. Whether people know it, whether ardent fans know it — and I suspect they do. But, believe me, going to a game, watching it on TV, there\u2019s a lot of fantasy involved, thinking you can do it, how great that life would be. “Man, I would love to be an NFL player!”  You live your life through these guys, depending on how old or young you are.  <\/p>\n

You use the time to get away from all the other days of the week where you hear how rotten your country is, or you hear how rotten you are, or you hear how rotten your candidate is and how great the other candidate is.  You go to watch a sport… Baseball, too. Football, it doesn\u2019t matter what it is. It\u2019s an escape from all that.  And now the sport is bringing all that stuff to it and promoting it.  And we\u2019ll see if people adjust to it and end up not minding it.  We\u2019ll see.  But the early indications are the people are not thrilled.<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RUSH: Here\u2019s Mark in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as we get back to the phones.  Hey! What\u2019s happening?  CALLER:  Good day, Rush.  Hey, last week or two weeks ago when you were talking about the NFL, their viewership being down, I think you didn\u2019t complete the analysis.  First of all, let\u2019s say there are a lot of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Many Reasons Behind the NFL Ratings Decline - The Rush Limbaugh Show<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.rushlimbaugh.com\/daily\/2016\/09\/30\/the_many_reasons_behind_the_nfl_ratings_decline\/\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:title\" content=\"The Many Reasons Behind the NFL Ratings Decline - The Rush Limbaugh Show\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:description\" content=\"RUSH: Here\u2019s Mark in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, as we get back to the phones.  Hey! 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