SmashMouth

With a 13.4/5 in the metered markets, the post-midnight ending game is down 8% from last year’s kickoff of September 7, 2017. In one of the lowest season openers ratingswise and facing portions of a cable news-covered rally by a very NFL critical President Donald Trump, last night’s game is not only down from last year, but 2016, 2015 and 2014 – all of which saw successive declines.

To add more injury to that, the 2017 8:42 PM ET-starting season opener between the victorious Kansas City Chiefs and New England Patriots ended up with a weak 7.7/29 rating among adults 18-49 and 21.8 million viewers. That was a double digit decline from 2016 and the worst total audience an opening game had since 2009.

Even in a TV landscape where ratings and viewership are noticeably dipping, unless you are This Is Us or Game Of Thrones, those results have to worry the NFL and the broadcasters, especially the still Rupert Murdoch-owned Fox with its pricey Thursday Night Football debuting this year

deadline.com

ScottF

I get that the SB champ gets the home game, but opponent selection has been bad. No one wants to see KC or Atl

Beastmode

Game has been squeezed for every last drop of safety. Only thing left are decimal points of better helmets and padding.

Streaming, video games. Those are the main things killing it. New generation does not care about football.

burningmetal

Streaming has a little something to do with it. There are many different things that have some affect. But streaming and video games aren't new inventions. It does not explain the precipitous drop-off year over year.

We don't have to pretend that politics aren't killing many sports; especially football. It just is what it is, no matter how the other side tries to justify, or rationalize it.

saintfan

I think lots of things are killing the ratings, and to be sure they're down across all sports. The NFL just isn't immune anymore, and that's the real story. Kids will stream parts of games but on that platform I doubt they're watching the whole game. I used to park myself in front of a TV Sunday morning and stayed there until the games were done. Kids don't do that much anymore, if at all.

The NFL's handling of its own scandals hasn't helped its ratings, imo. Everyone other than Falcons fans saw through the bounty gate fiasco. The NFL is also hurting itself with the way it is handling the Anthem drama. The 'common good', fiscally, of the NFL player is being hurt, long term, by short term protest with questionable foundation. That's the irony. But the players aren't going to listen until their agents tell them. They're digging their own hole.

C'mon Man...

QBREES9

No surprise

stickman

I don't think kids have the attention span anymore. I think that's why baseball has lost popularity. People don't just relax and watch a game as much.

vpheughan

Oh yeah? Well............wait, what was question again!!! Look something shiny!!!