Fewer people watched NFL games in 2018, but those who watched watched more
The NFL’s TV viewership increased by an average of 5 percent per game this season. But it would be inaccurate to say that more people watched the NFL in 2018 than in 2017.
In fact, fewer people watched football in 2018. But ratings increased because those who did watch the NFL watched more of it.
Michael Mulvihill, executive V.P. for research at FOX Sports, points out
that the NFL’s “reach” was actually down this season: In 2018 there
were 184.2 million people who watched an NFL game at some points, while
in 2017 there were 189.2 million people who watched an NFL game.
But
the overall viewership was up because the average fan who watched any
football at all watched one more game (17.1 games in 2018 compared to
16.2 games in 2017), and the average viewer of a game stayed tuned in
for about three minutes longer this season than last season.
It
seems likely that the decline in reach is driven by cord cutters: More
and more people watch TV only through Netflix, Hulu and other outlets
that don’t have NFL games, and those people don’t see any football at
all. In the past, when almost everyone had a TV that could get the
broadcast channels, some people who weren’t NFL fans would end up
watching a game just because they were bored and flipping through the
channels on a lazy Sunday. Now those same people check what’s available
on Netflix and never come across an NFL game.
Despite
that issue — which is an issue that affects all of television, not just
the NFL — the league was able to increase its ratings because fans were
more engaged with the product. Subjectively, the quality of play seemed
to be up this year, and that’s reflected in the fact that fans were
watching more games, and more likely to watch a game until the end
instead of turning off a boring game at halftime.
The
issue with fewer people watching is a real one, and one the NFL wants
to get its arms around. One of the reasons the league made a deal with
Amazon to simulcast the Thursday night games that also air on FOX and
NFL Network is that it wants to experiment with attracting those fans
who don’t have a cable TV subscription. The league still has a lot of
work to do on that front.
But as long as the football is good, the fans will watch. This year the football was good, and so were the ratings.
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