Photo Courtesy: @DavidPhotokc/Twitter
The NFL opened its 2017 season Thursday night, in much the same way that it played out the 2016 season. The game featured the team that won the final game of the year last season, the game was high-scoring with plenty of offense, the game featured an anthem protest, and the league’s ratings went down.
The rating was down nearly two full points from last year’s 16.5 number for the Panthers-Broncos opener, and more than three points down from the Steelers-Patriots opener in 2015.
The NFL will likely continue to spin the decline that began in a sharp way last year but it’s hard not to notice that “as they kneel” the ratings drop.
The opener did not disappoint as the Kansas City Chiefs Cornerback Marcus Peters sat for the National Anthem. This week also saw Seattle Seattle Seahawk player Michael Bennett claim that the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department “profiled” him, prompting officials to describe the actual events as Bennett running away from cops as they were responding to the report of an active shooter.
The NFL later described Bennett as the “best” among them.
Last year, 44% of the fans that quit watching the NFL said it was because of the anthem protests and as protests continue, we expect the ratings to continue to drop.
Let’s be clear. This is not about race relations and law enforcement. As far as we can tell, not one player that has protested has actually done anything but that about the perceived issue and in our mind, that is simply because it’s not an issue. As we continue to point out, the data simply doesn’t show it.
NFL Players have simply latched on to a few high profile incidents and claimed a national epidemic. No one is kneeling for fatherless homes or violent crime or an education crisis.
No one is doing that because those are real problems and they have hit the African American Community in a devastating way. It is that reason that few respect the NFL.
