Midway through NFL season, television ratings are down

NEW YORK — Midway through a season remembered for its protests by some players during the national anthem as much as bone-crunching hits, viewership for NFL football games is down 5 percent from last year.

The NFL has slowed a decline that was more pronounced in 2016, and the erosion is actually less than it is for other forms of television programming. Yet Wall Street analysts have noticed the trend and sports programmers are searching for reasons. The NFL’s aura of invincibility as an entertainment product has taken a hit.

“It’s certainly not cause for panic,” said Rick Gentile, a former CBS Sports executive and now a Seton Hall University professor, “but they like to keep going up.”

The average NFL game this season has attracted 14.8 million viewers, down from 15.6 million at the same point last year, the Nielsen company said. The decline was 14 percent between the 2015 and 2016 mid-seasons, although more people returned when election year politicking left the airwaves.

What has put the NFL in news headlines this fall, instead of just the sports pages, is the protest primarily by black players about the treatment of minorities by law enforcement. It has been expressed most often by players kneeling for “The StarSpangled Banner” before the games, an action that incurred the wrath of President Donald Trump.