
While the Chiefs and Patriots are playing the first Thursday game of the season, it technically doesn't fall under the guise of "Thursday Night Football," which kicks off on NFL Network in Week 2 and includes every game below aside from the Week 1 matchup and Week 12's Thanksgiving matchup. Overall, I believe there is still reason for them to be concerned, because there has never been a stretch this long where they have continued to experience decline.Football returns on Thursday when the Chiefs and Patriots kick off the 2017 season in the season debut of "Sunday Night Football." I think it’s more telling when we get to the middle of the season. “It’s the beginning of the season, and people are excited to have football to watch when they haven’t had it all summer. “My initial reaction when I looked at the numbers was that’s probably novelty effect,” says Dees. “The politics are far less of a factor in the ratings decline than player safety and recent rule changes,” says Dees, who also remains skeptical of a ratings recovery. Meanwhile, some argue that the protests are a red herring. The gap between live ratings for NFL football and faster-falling entertainment programming continues to widen every season. Other factors, however, such as overexposure driven by the addition of “Thursday Night Football” to the league’s broadcast lineup, are still in play.
THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL JANUARY 5 2017 TV
Now, TV sports executives are expressing hope that reaction to the protests has become baked in, and that most viewers who would decide not to watch games in part because of that issue have already stopped watching. But CBS Sports president Sean McManus last year told reporters that coverage of the protests was “one of the factors that I think perhaps led to the slight decrease in ratings last year.”

Although some critics, including President Donald Trump, have attempted to link ratings losses to on-field player protests against racial inequality, sports-TV executives initially rejected the notion. What is slowing the descent is still being argued over.
THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL JANUARY 5 2017 FULL
Though full ratings for Week 4 were not available at press time, Week 3 ratings held to the trend of a slight dip from the previous season, one in which there had before been significant falloff - this year is down 3% year over year versus a 13% decline last season. Thursday night’s Vikings-Rams matchup was the first game of the still-young NFL season’s fourth week. I don’t even really have a specific expectation in terms of the growth. If we do those two things, we’re gonna be really satisfied with our season.”Īs for what form he expects that improvement to take, he adds, “I don’t want to put a number to what that growth might be. 1,” says Fox Sports research chief Michael Mulvihill, referring to the Sunday-afternoon NFL matchup on Fox that has for nine seasons running been the most watched program on television. “What we’ve said from the beginning, the two big goals from this season: One was to keep Sunday at 4:25 p.m.

and shift to a programming strategy heavily reliant on news and sports. It was a solid start to an important property for Fox, as the company prepares to offload the bulk of its entertainment business to The Walt Disney Co. 27, when the Los Angeles Rams’ 38-31 victory over the Minnesota Vikings drew 14.5 million viewers - nearly even with last year’s “Thursday Night Football” premiere on CBS, which drew 14.6 million.

In January, Fox agreed to pay the NFL $3.3 billion over five years for the broadcast rights to “ Thursday Night Football.” It got its first official return on that investment Sept. “I think that’s why they’re all nervous right now, because the networks are all starting to see that maybe they paid too much and maybe they can’t get the return on that they used to.” “The pressure is immense,” says Windy Dees, a sports-administration professor at the University of Miami.
