CelticsStrong
Other Discussions => Other / General Sports => Topic started by: celticsclay on October 27, 2016, 03:14:00 PM
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This was being discussed in another thread the other day where many doubted that the reason the NFL ratings were down was tied to the anthem. New ESPN story reports it is the biggest reason
http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/17902695/anthem-protests-part-problem-nfl-ratings
I am not in any way supporting protesting the NFL over this, nor do I think it is a great thing to do. However, I found it humorous how the NFL and many fans denied this trend despite there being tens of thousands of tweets every week with the #boycottnfl. Curious if the NFL does anything with the new data.
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maybe the NFL get congress to rid us of that pesky first amendment. we're losing ratings here people!!
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maybe the NFL get congress to rid us of that pesky first amendment. we're losing ratings here people!!
I don't really think it is a first amendment right. They are employees at a company at the end of the day. My job can and does tell to not use my their platform to express my political views, but I can do whatever I want when I am not at work and wearing my employee badge (which the exception of breaking laws). I am actually supportive of starting a dialogue but pretending that make a social justice commentary while being paid by your employer and wearing their corporate logo on your sleeve is a first amendment right is a losing argument.
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I'd like to know if the 841 people they actually polled actually are football fans and how many actual NFL games they have watched in the last 5 years or so compared to this year.
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I'd like to know if the 841 people they actually polled actually are football fans and how many actual NFL games they have watched in the last 5 years or so compared to this year.
Yea that seemed like more information should have been included about the sampling size and how many games they had watched recently. It made it difficult to 100% understand the validity of the results. That being said, I work in social media and can do some twitter combing because of this and was surprised to see that there were 11k tweets with the #boycottnfl in them during a standard 1 week period since the NFL season started. By comparison something that is trending on twitter often has just a few thousand tweets, so that is not small potatoes.
People have wanted to act (and I probably would like it to believe it myself), that there was not a significant portion of the population that would get so upset about this they would stop watching the games. However, all data I have seen shows this has had a significant impact on viewership numbers.
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I know its one game but are people not going to watch Jaguars/Titans tonight because of protests?
Or is it because of oversaturation & decline in play?
I really think this poll is off. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think the protests are the biggest issue with the NFL & its ratings right now. Maybe my head is in the sand here, I don't know.
I think Cuban was onto something with the "pigs get fed, hogs gets slaughtered" line from a couple of years ago.
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No way it is from the protests. The most logical reason is being given no attention in these types of analyses...
DAILY FANTASY IS BASICALLY GONE!
Personally, I am not in a fantasy league for the first time in 15 years and I haven't watched but maybe 5 minutes of NFL (except for the Pats) this year. Fantasy was largely responsible for the NFL boom in the last decade and the bans on daily fantasy and the websites which supported it surely are behind the decline.
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I used to watch a lot more NFL games then I do now. I'd say the combination of the protests, the recent findings from the last few years of the NFL covering up their concussion problems, bad publicity from handling players commiting sexual assault and that thing that happened to Tom Brady have all contributed to me not wanting to watch the NFL more.
With that said. If the product was better I might over look some of that but it's not. It's definitely a combination.
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It's kinda remarkable but I find myself much more engaged with college football this year than probably any season going back to when I was in college ('99-'03). Obviously, I'm still watching NFL but finding the college games much more entertaining right now.
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I'd like to know if the 841 people they actually polled actually are football fans and how many actual NFL games they have watched in the last 5 years or so compared to this year.
Yea that seemed like more information should have been included about the sampling size and how many games they had watched recently. It made it difficult to 100% understand the validity of the results. That being said, I work in social media and can do some twitter combing because of this and was surprised to see that there were 11k tweets with the #boycottnfl in them during a standard 1 week period since the NFL season started. By comparison something that is trending on twitter often has just a few thousand tweets, so that is not small potatoes.
People have wanted to act (and I probably would like it to believe it myself), that there was not a significant portion of the population that would get so upset about this they would stop watching the games. However, all data I have seen shows this has had a significant impact on viewership numbers.
but how many of those people actually have stopped or slowed down watching NFL games. I know people that have tweeted stuff like that, that don't actually like football and have never watched NFL games (outside of the occasional Superbowl).
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I know its one game but are people not going to watch Jaguars/Titans tonight because of protests?
Or is it because of oversaturation & decline in play?
I really think this poll is off. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think the protests are the biggest issue with the NFL & its ratings right now. Maybe my head is in the sand here, I don't know.
I think Cuban was onto something with the "pigs get fed, hogs gets slaughtered" line from a couple of years ago.
Ill throw this out there. Here is the data on the #boycottnfl that has been used for the last 7 weeks.
1 billion estimated impressions from 323,019 Twitter mentions
(the software I am assuming is rounding up or down slightly to a billion, for even our biggest
campaigns at a national company we never approach that and it is given in millions like 13.7 million)
If people want to pretend this isn't a thing with that kind of data I guess it is just burying a head in the sand, no offense.
I agree it is crazy and hard to believe, but really just seems to be the case.
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I'd like to know if the 841 people they actually polled actually are football fans and how many actual NFL games they have watched in the last 5 years or so compared to this year.
Yea that seemed like more information should have been included about the sampling size and how many games they had watched recently. It made it difficult to 100% understand the validity of the results. That being said, I work in social media and can do some twitter combing because of this and was surprised to see that there were 11k tweets with the #boycottnfl in them during a standard 1 week period since the NFL season started. By comparison something that is trending on twitter often has just a few thousand tweets, so that is not small potatoes.
People have wanted to act (and I probably would like it to believe it myself), that there was not a significant portion of the population that would get so upset about this they would stop watching the games. However, all data I have seen shows this has had a significant impact on viewership numbers.
but how many of those people actually have stopped or slowed down watching NFL games. I know people that have tweeted stuff like that, that don't actually like football and have never watched NFL games (outside of the occasional Superbowl).
At this point to get this exact kind of data you would have to do a qualitative analysis which coding the statements as negative or positive along with a yes no grade on whether they previously watched the NFL would be way too big a resource investment for it to ever be included.
That being said, if you are forced to rely on anecdotal messaging, the majority of the tweets I see when pulling this kind of data is people saying "i use to be a die hard fan, but now spend sundays out with my kids and don't miss it at all" (occasionally with some unfortunate racist commentary added)
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I know its one game but are people not going to watch Jaguars/Titans tonight because of protests?
Or is it because of oversaturation & decline in play?
I really think this poll is off. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think the protests are the biggest issue with the NFL & its ratings right now. Maybe my head is in the sand here, I don't know.
I think Cuban was onto something with the "pigs get fed, hogs gets slaughtered" line from a couple of years ago.
Ill throw this out there. Here is the data on the #boycottnfl that has been used for the last 7 weeks.
1 billion estimated impressions from 323,019 Twitter mentions
(the software I am assuming is rounding up or down slightly to a billion, for even our biggest
campaigns at a national company we never approach that and it is given in millions like 13.7 million)
If people want to pretend this isn't a thing with that kind of data I guess it is just burying a head in the sand, no offense.
I agree it is crazy and hard to believe, but really just seems to be the case.
Do we know for sure that everyone using #boycottnfl is using that hashtag solely for reasons related to protests or also other factors such as violence, an abhorrent record on domestic violence, decline in quality in play, headscratching league office decisions, etc....?
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I don't believe it for a moment, but if that's true, I say -- awesome.
If the protests truly are affecting the NFL bottom line, maybe they can do something publicly to try and address the underlying issue.
After all, the NFL could sure use something to rehab its image with the public.
All of that said, I think the ratings are down because the NFL product just isn't that great these days. It's only truly engaging if you've got money riding on the outcomes.
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It's a pretty silly poll. 56% of fans think the decline in ratings is because of said protests, after the media hypothesizes that it is because of protests. A better poll would be to ask the respondent if s/he watches the NFL less, more, or the same, and if less, what the biggest reason is (with no prompting for a reason). I'd be surprised if more than 10% mentioned protests unprompted.
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This was being discussed in another thread the other day where many doubted that the reason the NFL ratings were down was tied to the anthem. New ESPN story reports it is the biggest reason
It sounds like the poll doesn't say that it is the biggest reason, it says that some people think it is the biggest reason. There are certainly people who want to believe it is true and will say yes if offered the option. I think the number would be significantly lower if it was an open-ended question, but that is hard to poll. I suspect that if the NFL tried to crack down on Kaepernick, the backlash would result in a boycott that would have ratings even lower, while leading to league sponsors being targeted, so it is probably in the NFL's financial interest to tolerate these protests.
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I think it's ridiculous that people would not turn on a football game because someone isn't standing during the national anthem that comes on before the game. If that was your issue why wouldn't you just turn it on right when the game starts?
My opinion on the ratings decline is that people are protesting how poorly the NFL is being run and the stupid rules that make the game less fun.
This kind of reminds me of the deflategate issue, because ESPN is once again being the mouthpiece of the NFL.
Mark my words this ratings decline will continue until the NFL finds a new commissioner.
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While I am skeptical that this is the reason for the decline in ratings, I am surprised that the league allowed the protest in the first place. The league is so hyper-involved with every aspect of presentation of its products, down to the cleats of the players. Why on earth would they allow players in uniform to take a political stance immediately before the games?
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I know its one game but are people not going to watch Jaguars/Titans tonight because of protests?
Or is it because of oversaturation & decline in play?
I really think this poll is off. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think the protests are the biggest issue with the NFL & its ratings right now. Maybe my head is in the sand here, I don't know.
I think Cuban was onto something with the "pigs get fed, hogs gets slaughtered" line from a couple of years ago.
Ill throw this out there. Here is the data on the #boycottnfl that has been used for the last 7 weeks.
1 billion estimated impressions from 323,019 Twitter mentions
(the software I am assuming is rounding up or down slightly to a billion, for even our biggest
campaigns at a national company we never approach that and it is given in millions like 13.7 million)
If people want to pretend this isn't a thing with that kind of data I guess it is just burying a head in the sand, no offense.
I agree it is crazy and hard to believe, but really just seems to be the case.
Do we know for sure that everyone using #boycottnfl is using that hashtag solely for reasons related to protests or also other factors such as violence, an abhorrent record on domestic violence, decline in quality in play, headscratching league office decisions, etc....?
While I am sure there are a decent amount of exceptions, the overwhelming amount of the tweets about this are related to the protests. If this makes it easier here are a handful of samples
Note the first is a former congressmen with a pretty significant following.
Note this isn't cherry picking these were just the top ones that came up in the last few hours
https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/791326697060564992
https://twitter.com/BeachDreamin291/status/791653815862829056
https://twitter.com/trumpology/status/791704093655830528
https://twitter.com/CatRN4U/status/791691651244711937
https://twitter.com/EDinCali/status/791629538132238337
https://twitter.com/LibertyUSA1776/status/790948809513705472
Again for the record I am a pretty liberal person that lives in California. I don't really have a dog in this race, and if I did I would be pro them doing whatever they want. However, when people are willfully choosing to ignore data and a pretty big movement it is interesting to me.
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While I am skeptical that this is the reason for the decline in ratings, I am surprised that the league allowed the protest in the first place. The league is so hyper-involved with every aspect of presentation of its products, down to the cleats of the players. Why on earth would they allow players in uniform to take a political stance immediately before the games?
PR driven. All optics.
If you have league officials confronting a player on the sidelines over something like this caught on camera (I understand the anthem often isn't show live but I guarantee cameras are still going), the backlash to the league would be pretty bad. Trying to stop it would look worse than how some see the act of protest itself. Then if you attempt to fine the guy (I'm not sure how this would be covered by the CBA), the union gets involved and that relationship is already a disaster based on several recent incidents.
More than any other league in this country, the NFL is obsessed with how they are perceived by the public.
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I know its one game but are people not going to watch Jaguars/Titans tonight because of protests?
Or is it because of oversaturation & decline in play?
I really think this poll is off. Maybe I'm wrong but I don't think the protests are the biggest issue with the NFL & its ratings right now. Maybe my head is in the sand here, I don't know.
I think Cuban was onto something with the "pigs get fed, hogs gets slaughtered" line from a couple of years ago.
Ill throw this out there. Here is the data on the #boycottnfl that has been used for the last 7 weeks.
1 billion estimated impressions from 323,019 Twitter mentions
(the software I am assuming is rounding up or down slightly to a billion, for even our biggest
campaigns at a national company we never approach that and it is given in millions like 13.7 million)
If people want to pretend this isn't a thing with that kind of data I guess it is just burying a head in the sand, no offense.
I agree it is crazy and hard to believe, but really just seems to be the case.
Do we know for sure that everyone using #boycottnfl is using that hashtag solely for reasons related to protests or also other factors such as violence, an abhorrent record on domestic violence, decline in quality in play, headscratching league office decisions, etc....?
While I am sure there are a decent amount of exceptions, the overwhelming amount of the tweets about this are related to the protests. If this makes it easier here are a handful of samples
Note the first is a former congressmen with a pretty significant following.
Note this isn't cherry picking these were just the top ones that came up in the last few hours
https://twitter.com/WalshFreedom/status/791326697060564992
https://twitter.com/BeachDreamin291/status/791653815862829056
https://twitter.com/trumpology/status/791704093655830528
https://twitter.com/CatRN4U/status/791691651244711937
https://twitter.com/EDinCali/status/791629538132238337
https://twitter.com/LibertyUSA1776/status/790948809513705472
Again for the record I am a pretty liberal person that lives in California. I don't really have a dog in this race, and if I did I would be pro them doing whatever they want. However, when people are willfully choosing to ignore data and a pretty big movement it is interesting to me.
Not ignoring it. Questioning. As other in the thread have mentioned, there are plenty of questions about the data itself. I think Saltlover making the best point of the bunch.
And to be clear, I'm sure it's impacted some peoples' viewing habits of the NFL, I'm just not buying into the protests being the biggest factor.
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Yeah I'm skeptical. I would bet that the poll is measuring "hey people who still watch the NFL, why are other people not watching as much?" And the people who still care about the NFL are like "Its the protests!"
I'd be more interested in asking "hey people who used to watch but now don't pay attention, why did you turn the TV off?" I think the people who genuinely watched a lot of games and then suddenly turned them off because someone kneeled in a part of the pre-game part that no one really watches anyway is very small.
I'd be willing to bet it has a lot more to do with:
- Continued fractionation of all media consumption
- Dilution/saturation (I'm busy, can I really watch THurs, Sun x 3-4, Mon?)
- Non-protest social - Am I (or my kids) supposed to idolize Josh Brown, Ray Rice, Vick, Roethlisberger, Ray Lewis, etc?
- Concussions; hard to rationalize watching people do something I wouldn't let my kids do
- Big names suspended for wrong and arbitrary reasons (Brady, obvs)
- Worse teams. Maybe its shorter preseason. Maybe more practice restrictions. I tend to think it is a direct consequence of the entire goal of the CBA. The league wanted parity, it is getting it. It makes it harder to keep that veteran piece; not necessarily the big time WR, but that 4th Guard, that blocking TE, that sub-package DE, etc. And you have to replace that with more CBA-friendly young, athletic, but inexperienced, don't-know-the-system as well guys. This makes sloppier play, and brings elite teams more toward the middle each year. It's what the league wanted, apparently, but for TV ratings probably not good. It's actually better for national TV ratings to have Packer, Cowboys, Giants, Seahawks, Steelers, Bengals, Colts, Pats beating up on everyone else, then basically binging on the sunday afternoon channel surfing games then being able to see some combination of the above teams on Sunday night and Monday night. But now we water down even those teams, add a Thurs and a Sunday Morning game...too much mediocrity on a national scale.
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The NFL has one main problem: its product is garbage. The poor quality of teams/play this year has been absolutely striking. I've always considered myself a big football fan--I'm plastered to the couch from 1-7 every Sunday--but this year I've started to watch less and less. I've stopped watching primetime games all together and tend to shy away from all non-Pats games. The Patriots are great, but who else is even adequate? Minnesota? Atlanta? Seattle? Pittsburgh? All of those teams are fairly meh...and they're the best of the best.
The NFL is an utterly detestable organization, its product is poor, and less and less talent is infused into the sport of football every day. Meanwhile, the NBA is in a golden age. Everyone's getting rich, the quality of play is fantastic, the league is expanding worldwide, the commissioner is universally loved, and the owners and players are getting along swimmingly. The NBA also does the little things, like encouraging the sharing of the sport through highlights and short clips, while the NFL won't even allow its teams to post footage of their own games. NBA ratings are at an all-time high, NFL at historic lows. At this rate, there might be a changing of the guard on the horizon; the NBA could establish itself as America's marquee league.
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More than any other league in this country, the NFL is obsessed with how they are perceived by the public.
While I"m sure this is true, it's ironic, considering how woefully incompetent they appear to be in managing their public image.
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More than any other league in this country, the NFL is obsessed with how they are perceived by the public.
While I"m sure this is true, it's ironic, considering how woefully incompetent they appear to be in managing their public image.
Oh, its ridiculously ironic.
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I wouldn't be surprised if it is addressed in the offseason either league wide or in house with every team like jerry Jones did. While I absolutely agree there is social injustice going on in this country that needs to be addressed, kaep and others are going at it the wrong way. The national anthem before games isn't to reinforce that America is great and perfect and nothing is wrong in the country, it's to honor the military. The announcers literally say "please rise for the singing of the national anthem to honor the fallen, former, and current military", last I checked there wasn't social injustice in any branch of the military. So to me that's the most disrespectful thing you could do, especially when there are soldiers 10 feet in front of you holding the flag. And then kaep says "no disrespect to the military.." but does one of the most disrespectful things you could do.
Again, I am absolutely for change in our governments and police forces because there is obviously something wrong, but go at this in a productive way. You have millions of followers on social media and literally have 15 cameras and microphones in your face after each game and practice but you choose to kneel during the anthem to get your word out, I just don't get it.. I haven't seen or heard of him doing anything else outside of kneeling and wearing anti police clothing to help further his cause. And why would you agree to sing the national anthem just to protest it? That would be like a vegan going to a rib house, eating 3/4 a rack of ribs, and then throwing it on the ground and opening up their blazer to reveal a PETA shirt. Don't make no sense..
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This was being discussed in another thread the other day where many doubted that the reason the NFL ratings were down was tied to the anthem. New ESPN story reports it is the biggest reason
It sounds like the poll doesn't say that it is the biggest reason, it says that some people think it is the biggest reason. There are certainly people who want to believe it is true and will say yes if offered the option. I think the number would be significantly lower if it was an open-ended question, but that is hard to poll. I suspect that if the NFL tried to crack down on Kaepernick, the backlash would result in a boycott that would have ratings even lower, while leading to league sponsors being targeted, so it is probably in the NFL's financial interest to tolerate these protests.
Bingo.
Personally I've been watching the league less this year because the product is garbage. Too many horrible primetime games, and an overall lack of good teams and good QB play.
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Also for me personally, it hasn't effected my love of the NFL one bit. I still watch every pats game and any game that I can watch. Heck I even wake up for the 930am London games and watch all the way thru til the end of SNF after 11pm. Even though I'm not in favor of the protests, it hasn't stopped me one bit. As some have mentioned they barely ever show the national anthem anyways except now to show who kneels and who doesn't. Maybe there are others who take it even more serious as to stop watching all together because of it but I think the majority of the reason viewing rates are low is a culmination of everything going on. From the incompetent commish, to the disturbing domestic abuse scandals every month, all the way to the new rules dulling down the game. I mean they call it the No Fun League for a reason lol.
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The NFL has one main problem: its product is garbage. The poor quality of teams/play this year has been absolutely striking. I've always considered myself a big football fan--I'm plastered to the couch from 1-7 every Sunday--but this year I've started to watch less and less. I've stopped watching primetime games all together and tend to shy away from all non-Pats games. The Patriots are great, but who else is even adequate? Minnesota? Atlanta? Seattle? Pittsburgh? All of those teams are fairly meh...and they're the best of the best.
The NFL is an utterly detestable organization, its product is poor, and less and less talent is infused into the sport of football every day. Meanwhile, the NBA is in a golden age. Everyone's getting rich, the quality of play is fantastic, the league is expanding worldwide, the commissioner is universally loved, and the owners and players are getting along swimmingly. The NBA also does the little things, like encouraging the sharing of the sport through highlights and short clips, while the NFL won't even allow its teams to post footage of their own games. NBA ratings are at an all-time high, NFL at historic lows. At this rate, there might be a changing of the guard on the horizon; the NBA could establish itself as America's marquee league.
There is one double barreled reasoning why the NFL will probably remain number 1. Most people that engage in sports wagering consider it the most fun and easiest to bet on. It sets itself up for this by being predominantly played on a day where the majority of people are not working and having a manageable length of season. So it sets up as something fun for people to do a few months of the year. This may also surprise people but more people feel NBA games are rigged than they do NFL games. While people get extremely upset with the inconsistencies regarding catches and pass interference they are chalked up to unpredictable random incompetence. Whereas in the NBA generally feel (fueled in no small part of Donagy's claims) that the Refs control the games and have incentive to let certain players and teams do better at unpredictable times. EG if you think the Raptors are actually a better team at home than the Cavs but you know the Refs may have a night they parade Lebron to the lines it is less fun to bet on.
For many of these reasons (particularly the shorter seasons) fantasy is also more popular in the NFL by many many miles. Nobody can really commit to nights every game for 6 months.
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Saw these two articles linked off of Awful Announcing today. Pretty relevant to this discussion from last week.
http://adage.com/article/print-edition/nfl-ratings-slump-anthem-protests/306533/?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=Social
Applying Occam's razor and picking the simplest explanation for the NFL's ratings slide—i.e., the games aren't worth watching, and the refs are only making it worse—admittedly leaves out a host of other quantifiable contributing factors. There's the 80% traffic declines at DraftKings and FanDuel sites, for example, suggesting that the daily fantasy football craze is on the wane. And then there's the surreal election cycle, seeing cable news networks take share from the NFL windows.
But at least one working theory deserves to be cut from the 53-man roster for lack of supporting evidence.
Citing a single landline poll by the right-leaning Rasmussen Reports, news outlets this month have been falling all over themselves to assign blame to 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's national anthem protests. Yet the key findings aren't supported by the Nielsen data.
While twice as many white respondents told Rasmussen that they were less likely to watch the NFL this season in light of the anthem protests, white viewership is down 12% year-over-year, versus a 14% decline among black viewers. Rasmussen also concluded that "the more one earns, the more likely they are to say they may be shutting off NFL games." In reality, NFL viewership among viewers from households with annual income of more than $75,000 is down 14%, while those below that salary divide have trimmed their football intake by 19%.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/redskins/the-nfl-is-becoming-more-disturbing-than-appealing-and-tv-viewers-are-tuning-out/2016/10/31/71466610-9f95-11e6-a44d-cc2898cfab06_story.html?tid=pm_pop_b
Perhaps the most knowledgeable and acute observer of the NFL is Oriard, a former player for the Kansas City Chiefs turned author whose highly regarded cultural history of the league, “Brand NFL,” is essential reading. Oriard observed, “The job is to market the game, without letting marketing get in the way of the game.” The league has let marketing get in the way of the game, and one expression of that is coming from the officials.
The NFL’s overemphasis on “brand” and “shield” has meant increasingly petty attention to discipline and uniformity, which is sucking away dynamism and rendering it joyless. The league is picking apart its own product with stoppages, until it’s hard for the viewer to separate the major from the minor offense: According to NFLpenalties.com, officials have thrown 1,996 yellow flags, every one of which means a halt. An analyst at The Big Lead ran a database check of profootballreference.com and discovered that offensive holding penalties have increased by fully 43 percent since 2011, and defensive pass interference is up by 45 percent over the same period. Now throw in the new emphasis on curbing celebrations with unsportsmanlike conduct flags. No wonder there are so many cutaways to commercials or to suits in the owner’s box.
“The rhythms and pace of the game are changed,” Oriard said. “There’s a lot less dramatic excitement — and you can’t overstate how much I don’t care if Jerry Jones is enjoying the game.”