NFL season-opener ratings for the birds
The NFL threw up another woundedduck TV ratings performance for its season-opening matchup.
Ratings for the NFL’s Thursday night game fell 11 percent from last year’s opener, while viewership declined 13 percent — the lowest levels in a decade.
The Thursday Night Football telecast on NBC, delayed 45 minutes due to severe weather in the Philadelphia area — averaged an 11.2 overnight national rating and 19 million viewers, according to “fast official” results from NBC Sports.
The results represent the lowest season-opener in 10 years, according to Sports Media Watch — and breathed new life into fears about the NFL’s ability to save fan interest from being in a structural decline.
The game, which saw the Super Bowl champ Philadelphia Eagles beat their NFC rival Atlanta Falcons 18-12, drew a leading 32.9 overnight rating in the City of Brotherly Love.
Atlanta drew a 19.8 rating, which was below the 24.6 rating for division rival New Orleans.
Despite the continued ratings erosion for the NFL, the league is still the leader by far in drawing eyeballs to the screen. The broadcast of the game, with its 9:05 p.m. kickoff, doubled the combined prime-time average of the other Big 3 networks — ABC, CBS and Fox.
“On the plus side, the NFL’s still the tallest midget by a mile,” a sports-media consultant told The Post, a reference to even steeper declines in the networks’ non-sports programming.