The NFL management has blamed the declined television ratings on the presidential race.
A leaked internal memo discusses why ratings are down 11 percent in the NFL, and one of the biggest factors is the presidential race.
The NFL blamed the first presidential debate for bringing ratings down for Monday Night Football and likely down for the upcoming Sunday Night Football game. However, it is noted that this is no out of the ordinary for an election.
Internal NFL memo sent to address concern as to why ratings this season are so far down 11% pic.twitter.com/SitMveCr8q
— Darren Rovell (@darrenrovell) October 7, 2016
“In 2000, during the campaign between George W. Bush and Al Gore, all four NFL broadcast partners suffered year-over-year declines — Fox was down 4 percent, CBS was down 10 percent, ABC was down 7 percent and ESPN was down 11 percent,” the NFL claimed in the memo. (RELATED:
The memo also placed no responsibility on San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick and other players protesting the national anthem for a decline in writings.
The memo states, “Finally, it is worth noting that we see no evidence that concern over player protests during the national anthem is having any material impact on our ratings.”