In spite of the spin by NFL executives, liberal apologists of the establishment's media and others, NFL ratings are down. There can be no denying this truth.The above chart comes from data gathered from various sources. Estimates were made for the years 1990 through 1998 based on Monday Night Football viewership and the ratio of MNF viewership to other broadcasts for various seasons.
The first observation to notice is how viewership tracks the state of the economy. In bad times, viewership rises (1990 to 1993; 2007 to 2012). This should be no surprise. Adult Americans have less discretionary income in bad times. They stay home more. TV viewing is cheap.
The red line represents average viewership for all years. That figure comes to 17.1 million viewers.
The above chart comes from an average of viewership over prime time games and featured games during Sunday daytime. Viewership is down -11.9% since Week 1. Week 6 viewership is down -10.6% from the long run average viewership of 17.1 million viewers.
As you can see, there had been a viewership spike between weeks three and five. This makes sense as more Americans tuned their TV sets to see what NFL protesting players would do in response to President Trump's commentary during a campaign stop in Alabama during the senatorial special election for that state.
NFL VIEWERSHIP AND ATTENDANCE AS ECONOMIC INDICATORS
As you can see in the above chart, NFL attendance peaked around the time of Peak GDP as measured in True Dollars™ and plunged during the Greenspan-Bernanke Great Depression.
Since 2010, NFL attendance has been on the rise. True enough, NFL execs play fast and loose with NFL attendance figures. Yet, likely, in terms of buying power, NFL ticket prices have fallen in True Dollars.
As well, in the NFL viewership chart as stated already, NFL viewership seems to track the state of the economy. Combined, the two views, NFL attendance and NFL viewership, might make for confirmation measures of the economy.
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