After a nightmare season that saw TV viewership fall a record 9.7 percent, an even larger wave of fans passed on watching the first round of the NFL playoffs last weekend, according to The NY Post.
Overnight ratings for the four Wild Card games fell by an average of 13 percent — with one game, the Saints-Panthers matchup, off a whopping 21 percent, according to Nielsen.
Even Goodell, speaking to reporters before Sunday’s Bills-Jaguars matchup, admitted, “We always want ratings to go up.” But then, perhaps knowing his games still draw a crowd, he mentioned the NFL accounted for 37 of last year’s top 50 TV shows.
Nonetheless, the 9.7 percent viewership decline in the regular season — after an 8 percent decline the prior year — has the league playing serious catch-up.
NFL Wild Card overnight ratings:— Sports Media Watch (@paulsen_smw) January 8, 2018
-- Panthers-Saints and Bills-Jags lowest in respective windows since 2009
-- Falcons-Rams lowest in Sat. night window ever (began in 2002)
-- Wild Card overnights down across board for first time since ... 2015.https://t.co/XtwgYElxc1
In its most recent report, ad-tracker Standard Media Index estimates that “audience deficiency units” — otherwise known as make-goods — accounted for 21 percent of NFL ad inventory through the first three months of this season and for 22 percent through the same period a year earlier.
This means NFL broadcasters have been devoting about a fifth of their in-game ad time to making their advertisers whole. They do that by providing additional ad time — at no extra cost — to meet the preseason ratings targets they negotiated with their advertisers.
SMI also reports that the networks airing the NFL’s national telecasts benefitted from a 2 percent bump in ad revenue through the end of November. But almost all of the uptick, it said, can be attributed to an extra game in 2017.
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