NFL commissioner Roger Goodell has shrugged off concerns over falling television ratings, stating his belief that the American football league hasn’t lost viewers.
Goodell (pictured) was quizzed over the ratings issue at a press conference during the league’s latest owners’ meeting in Houston yesterday (Wednesday). Viewership has fallen by around 11 per cent over the first six weeks of the 2016 regular season, with Sunday’s clash between the Indianapolis Colts and Houston Texans drawing just 12.9 million viewers, making it the least watched Sunday Night Football encounter since 2011.
Statistics from audience measurement company Nielsen suggest that each live televised Sunday night game is down in the ratings compared to the equivalent encounter last year, with a variety of factors cited for the slump.
These range from games being lined up directly against US presidential election debates to a backlash against the national anthem protest staged by some players, as well as concerns over a perceived decline in quality of play.
Goodell said: “We see tremendous strength in our numbers, but we also know that two primetime games that were seeing the most dramatic decrease went straight up against two very significant (presidential) debates. Another one of our primetime games on Thursday night was on the NFL Network as opposed to a network broadcast, which will always get a lower rating.
“There are a lot of factors to be considered. We don't make excuses. We look at it and we try to figure out what's changing. Consumer changes in their behaviour and the way they consume media (is) something we've been focused on for several years and it's why we've been doing more with Snapchat and YouTube and others. That's why we did our work with Yahoo last year. We have a deal with Twitter to tri-cast our Thursday Night games. We're seeing these changes.”
He added: “We don't think we've lost viewers. I think when you look at ratings you have to go a little deeper than that. It is viewers but it's also how long they are engaging for. A lot of times people will leave a game for whatever reason – whether they're going to go to other programming or whether the game isn't that competitive. Those are all factors that happen.”