Reasons for ratings dips in sports run the gamut
There is no doubt about the most viewed sports moment of the past week.
The Rays’ Mike Brosseau ending a 10-pitch at-bat with the ultimate payback against Aroldis Chapman?
With a chance to close out the NBA Finals for his fourth ring, LeBron James drawing four Heat defenders, finding an open Danny Green and … Green missing?
Cody Bellinger robbing Fernando Tatis Jr. of a go-ahead NLDS homer with a spectacular catch, and Dodgers pitcher Brusdar Graterol celebrating by throwing his glove and cap and blowing a kiss to a furious Manny Machado?
No. No. And no. Not even close.
More than 57 million people watched The Fly land on Mike Pence’s head during the vice presidential debate and set up shop in his white hair for two minutes before leaving the field of play. Twitter and Facebook blew up. Latenight comedians rushed to the stage. A nation turned its lonely eyes to Jeff Goldblum.
Make no mistake. Politics is the No. 1 blood sport in America. And while this is not an unusual occurrence in election years, matters have taken epic twists and perverse turns in COVID 2020. These guys don’t play around. In the pantheon of liars, cheats and cheap-shot artists, Bill Belichick, the Astros and Bryan Marchand couldn’t get elected dog catcher.
So there is no mystery in politicians and pundits like Mike Huckabee tweeting: “Get woke-go broke! Game 3 of NBA finals plunged to 4.08 million from recordlow 4.5 million who watched Game 2, which shattered a record low of 7.41 million who watched Game 1. At this rate, if there’s Game 7, it will be beaten in the ratings by
reruns of ‘Green Acres’ on ME-TV.”
While we would argue that athletes in a league that is 74 percent Black using their immense platform to speak out against social injustices and speak out for the vote is at once courageous and empowering, the former Arkansas governor and Christian minister with an agenda obviously thinks it’s a punchline for Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor. Ted Cruz was right there in the twitter mud with Mark Cuban, saying he wished the Mavs’ owner loved his fans as much as Chinese money. Cuban called Cruz full of manure.
That’s all beside the fact. As much as the Loud Crowd insists, embracing social injustices isn’t THE reason for the decline in sports television ratings — massive in some cases — since the COVID restart. Nor is it the reason for pockets of ratings increase either. The WNBA, which has been more outspoken and more active in social causes than any league, saw its 2020 Finals ratings rise 34 percent over last year. Monday Night Football ratings are up slightly on ESPN, too, and before the NBA it was the NFL that was the target of the Get Woke, Go Broke movement.
If not the reason, is it a reason? Only a fool would say no one in America turned off the TV because Colin Kaepernick kneeled, or because players put social messages on their jerseys. We are a nation of
330 million individuals and individuals make choices.
Yet how does any of that explain golf’s U.S. Open dropping 56 percent from last year to an all-time low? And the tennis U.S. Open dropping 45 percent?
How does that explain the Stanley Cup Finals dropping 61 percent to a
13-year low of 2.15 million viewers?
How does that explain the Indianapolis 500 dropping 32 percent to all-time low? The Kentucky Derby dropping 43 percent to an all-time low of 8.3 million and the Preakness down
49 percent to 2.4 million viewers?
It doesn’t. Not once did Derby winner Authentic say anything about George Floyd or BLM.
As a matter of comparison over the last quarter, Sean Hannity averaged
4.45 million viewers and Tucker Carlson 4.35 million. Fox News outdrew all broadcast networks for the first time in prime time, with ratings on MSNBC and CNN way up, too.
“This is a news year like no other,” said Mike Soltys, ESPN vice president of corporate communications. “In the broadcast universe everyone likes to brag in
the TV trades about who won the night the night before. The NBA Finals had won the night every single game for more than a dozen years. No matter the competition, no matter how good the game was. Well, last Friday the president goes to the hospital and the NBA Finals doesn’t win the night.”
If Soltys’ last sentence doesn’t tell us everything about 2020, nothing will.
We are a nation with our collective head spinning faster than Brosseau’s when Chapman buzzed him at 101 mph. The NHL and NBA playoffs in September and October. The Masters in November. Our sports seasons are out of order. Our lives are out of order. COVID is everywhere. We are consumed by Trump and the election. If we are creatures of habit, well, we’re just creatures now showing each other that no matter how low the bar of civility has dropped — just hold my beer.
We’re barely hanging on as a planet.
“People will use the numbers to fit any argument they chose to make,” Soltys said. “The typical scorecard with television ratings is year over year. After months of next to nothing, we’re flooded with an abundance of things. Overall, it really is sport by sport with a lot of conflicting circumstances.”
Virtually all the ratings dives listed above are tied
to the fact that they were moved from their anchored spots on the calendar. This is a significant factor. Traditional dates and seasons were trashed by the pandemic. As a result, there are so many sports events — too many — eating each other up in any one time slot.
I was clicking so hard between stations Tuesday night among the Yankees, NBA Finals, WNBA Finals, NHL Draft and news channels that I shut down our modem. Tech support (my wife) had to save me. My Sept. 29 can best be described as a blur of Sun coach Curt Miller’s multicolored shirt and Trump interrupting Joe Biden every two seconds.
Geno Auriemma, who makes as much sense as anyone, was talking the other day about the subject of declining ratings. During COVID, “The Last Dance” about Michael Jordan and the Bulls riveted a nation. Among the first returners, golf and NASCAR got strong numbers and then things dipped big time.
“Initially,” Auriemma said, “you got the sense that wow, when sports come back everybody’s going to be fired up and TV’s going to be great. And maybe they watch a little bit on their tablet, a little bit on the phone but in terms of, are people sitting at home in front of the TV set watching
games? The sense that I’m hearing is no.
“That’s the danger, it goes away, and you don’t miss it after a while.”
That would be TV executives’ biggest nightmare. Once habits are broken, they take time to rebuild You know who’s a big winner? Netflix added more than five million subscribers in 2020 through June and is up to 73 million. Netflix has nothing to do with sports and everything with impacting on our nation’s viewing habits. Get out in the sun in the day. Watch Netflix at night. Maybe take up a hobby.
Everyone has an opinion on why TV numbers are down. Some think it’s because the games lack fans in the stands and sends the message it isn’t important. Yes, it takes away from the intensity, but I’m not sure about the ratings. There, too, are the metrics involving streaming that can show overall viewership holding steady in some sports, but Nielsen also is catching up with measuring the digital stuff and any differences are becoming less stark.
Still, the MLB shows an 11 percent drop in ratings, but a four percent gain in regular season viewership. ESPN showed MLB ratings up among viewers 18-49 and with women, and down with older men who are news channel watchers. The Red Sox viewership was down 54 percent,
but that’s because they stunk.
It’s a mixed bag. Early numbers were down significantly for college football but look at the games that you didn’t look at. Last year there were several meaningful September matchups. Not this year. With COVID, teams are starting up at different times. Games have been postponed or cancelled. Let’s give the big boys and the big games a chance before we give more than an incomplete grade.
A look at the NFL since 2017 shows an average weekly viewership of 15.5 million, 15.7 million, 16.3 million and 14.5 million (through four weeks this year). So it’s down a slice. MNF, despite having to share part of last Monday with the Patriots-Chiefs postponed game on CBS, is up a little on ESPN. You notice the Loud Crowd isn’t yelling about the NFL numbers. They aren’t bad enough.
“Something like Monday Night Football has a traditional window, been there for 50 years,” Soltys said. “The average sports fan knows that. Our belief is when things return to the normal, the sports world will return to normal.”
The question for 2021, of course, is what will be normal?