NFL television ratings are in, and Donald Trump’s call for a boycott has backfired
Donald Trump couldn’t get the NFL team owners to bend to his will on racial protests, so he tried to punish them by calling for an outright boycott of this weekend’s pro football games. This prompted several of those owners to publicly tell him off, even as more players staged protests than ever. In the end, the viewing public had the final decision, and viewers decided that Trump was the big loser.
CBS, which airs daytime NFL games on Sundays, has announced that it had “Strong NFL ON CBS ratings for week 3, Up +4% overall vs last year” (link). It also added that its pregame show saw its best ratings in several years.
Other sports reporters confirmed that this week’s NFL overall ratings are expected to be up over last week, once all the numbers come in. John Ourand of Sports Business Journal revealed that “Overnights from Sunday’s game are down around -4% on Fox/CBS/NBC combined: 45.9 vs 48.0. Week 3 likely to be up once MNF gets factored in” (link). The final NFL game of the weekend cycle won’t be played until Monday night.
In the mean time, it’s already abundantly clear that Donald Trump’s call for a boycott of the NFL has backfired. He’s unwittingly delivered higher television ratings for the NFL, while prompting more protests among players, and a larger stage for those players to get their message across.
