NFL to teams: Kneeling players are not the reason for ratings dip
By Brian Miller
The NFL sent a memo to it’s 32 teams today, one day after sending a memo to teams that they will be fined for using too much video on social media. This time around they want the teams to know that kneeling is not impacting the leagues ratings dip.
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The league, according to ProFootballTalk.com is down 11% from 2015 through the first four weeks of the season. Earlier this week, we spoke about that ratings dip here and while the NFL may believe that players taking a knee has no correlation between ratings, our readers who commented feel extremely different.
There are many reasons why the NFL ratings are dipping and some want you to believe that it’s because of the election debates and whatnot but let’s face it, most would rather tune into football this election year.
"“While our partners, like us, would have liked to see higher ratings, they remain confident in the NFL and unconcerned about a long-term issue,” Rolapp and Katz write, via the Wall Street Journal. The memo also boasts that pro football “continues to be far and away the most powerful programming on television and the best place for brands and advertisers.” via ProFootballTalk.com"
The NFL has always been a little too big for their britches but until now they had the numbers to back it up and each year those numbers continued to rise. The NFL however is stretching themselves very thin. Twitter is now broadcasting NFL games while NFL Network games are still not seen in a lot of households.
ESPN paid a ton of money for the rights to Monday Night Football but fans are tuning out of the network due to too much political talk and all of the networks continue to drive home the point of Colin Kaepernick who started all of the broughaha by taking a seat during the anthem.
While many people initially were upset with the stance as it continued it started to turn off more fans. For starters, the players have done absolutely nothing with their silent protest or whatever they want to call it. More positive talk came away from those teams locking arms and standing then those few choosing to take a knee.
Athletes and anyone have the right as American’s to stand or kneel during the anthem and as someone who grew up watching his family fight in the military I don’t discount that right. But damnit, do something with it.
They have failed in their delivery. Kaepernick never thought his actions through. If you are going to stand or in this case kneel for a cause, then you better have something else on your plate. Instead, not one single player is using his actions to solve or even help solve the problem of police relations across this country.
A couple of players have spoken to local police departments but the consensus reason is to simply soften the backlash those players have received. It’s great that they took a knee and brought national attention to it but now they are all just sitting back waiting for someone else to pick it up and start actually talking about solutions.
This is part of the problem when it comes to fans being turned off by these actions. It’s not going anywhere and the overall water cooler talk is mostly negative. At a Walmart outside of Fort Bragg in North Carolina, a 49’ers fan was shopping in his SF jersey. To which an older African American gentleman walked by him and said, “&$%K the 9’ers and *$#K Kaepernick”.
It’s not having the effect that they hoped it would have but it is dividing opinions.
While the NFL waffles on their reason for the ratings they can also look at their own actions internally. They treat the players like crap for starters. Fans are getting very tired of hearing about players being fined 10’s of thousands of dollars for incidental hits on a quarterback. They are groing tired of the enormous fines being levied on players who wear the wrong color shoes or toss a football to a fan.
Fines that to most fans represent a quarter years salary at times. Sometimes more.
Now the NFL wants their teams to share video on social media but if a team shows too much, they will receive a hefty fine. When will it end? The NFL is not fun anymore and each game is riddled with yellow flags for BS calls while major penalties are going unflagged.
Where is the Billy “White Shoe” Johnson, the “Fun-Bunch”, or even Ickey Woods’ shuffle? Those were fun years in the NFL and the best commissioner the NFL ever had, Pete Rozelle, allowed it. Roger Goodell is nothing more than a money monger who is driving the NFL away from it’s fan base.
I am all for, 100% for, penalizing any player or team who cheats to take advantage of the game or circumvent the rules. You take PED’s, you get suspended. What needs to change is the use of over the counter protein drinks that may have some minute substance in it that some poor athlete forgot about and now finds himself suspended.
It’s all a joke anymore. In 2015 I watched as many games as possible. All the Dolphins games, every Thursday, Monday, and Sunday night game, and had the NFL Sunday Ticket game mix channel on when the Dolphins were playing.
In 2016 I have watched exactly FOUR football games. FOUR.
I am not making a statement about the players kneeling although yeah without a plan of action it’s nothing more than a childish “look at me” action with no plan. No answers, no suggestions. I am however making a statement about the quality of play, officiating, the absurd rules, and the fact that the NFL still turns a blind eye to the real issues that are on the horizon for the league.
At some point the NFL has to do more. They need to relax the rules and they need to stop fining every infraction. The next thing you know the NFL will fine players for holding penalties. It makes no sense that an accidental flip of a football costs 15 yards as an unsportsmanlike penalty will cancel out a blatant helmet spear to the head of another player.
What’s even funnier is that both infractions carry $1,000 plus fines. It’s all ridiculous but hell, it gives me something to vent about. And now, for the 2nd time, I’m done.