Access Politics
Remember when ESPN was fun to watch? Now, it’s in an ever-constant cycle of laying people off — with more job loss reportedly coming — rumors abound that the network might give up its rights to Monday Night Football. In a recent column, Author James Andrew Miller asks, “Might ESPN elect to go without rights to NFL games after the expiration of its eight-year deal for Monday Night Football in 2021?!” He answers his own question:
“Impossible”? Yeah, we know — NFL games have been the backbone of ESPN’s existence since 1987, and the biggest, most critical element of its financial dominance ever since. The network basically can’t exist without an NFL rights package.
Well, think again — like some execs at the network have started to do…”
Cheryl Chumley believes she might have an idea why ESPN would drop the NFL. In the Washington Times, she described the staggering drop in viewership the league has recently experienced:
So NFL players have a right to kneel during the national anthem — true. But NFL fans have a right to buy or not buy tickets, and watch or not watch games.
And it’s the latter that’s speaking loudly now. Soon enough, fans — not spoiled players — will win this political brouhaha. It’s only a matter of time.
“Through three weeks, viewership for national telecasts of NFL games is down 11 percent this season compared to 2016, the Nielsen company said,” The Associated Press reported.
Eleven percent. That’s pretty sizable. By the eyeballs, it goes like this: In the first three weeks of the 2016 season, the NFL averaged 17.63 million viewers. In the first three weeks of this season? That stat has dropped to 15.65 million viewers.
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