Almost two and a half years after President Donald Trump chastised NFL players for kneeling during the national anthem, the NFL’s reputation — particularly among Republicans — is still recovering.
Heading into Super Bowl LIV, the league’s net favorability among U.S. adults is at its highest point since before the 2017 season, according to Morning Consult Brand Intelligence data, when the league found itself in the crosshairs of a culture war over players’ on-field protests against racial injustice in America.
While the kneeling trend started during the 2016 season with then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, the controversy exploded when Trump rebuked players during a rally in Alabama prior to Week 3 of the 2017 season, a line of attack he would continue with 13 NFL-related tweets during the next week.
Television viewership trends also reflect the league’s improved sentiment over the past two seasons, as the NFL said it notched its first back-to-back annual ratings increases since 2010. The 2019 season, in which viewership rose 5 percent year over year to an average of 16.5 million viewers per game, was the NFL’s best on TV since it posted the same figure in 2016. The league also continues to dominate all other programming, regardless of genre, scoring 16 of the top 20 most-watched telecasts of 2019.
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