NFL Ratings Down
RUSH: The National Football League. Tell me what you think of this. We just learned, by the way... Oh! No, you didn't learn this 'cause I didn't get a chance to pass it on to you yesterday. The first thing is that the ratings for opening night the National Football League are down. Yes! Here it is. "Ratings for the NFL Are Down From a Year Ago." In some cases -- the original reporting for the overnights before the entire national rating sample had been calculated -- they were down like 11%.
This is the Sunday night game, not Thursday. The Sunday night game between the Garoppolos and the Arizona Cardinals, down 11% over the same game a year ago. It's not panic time by any stretch. But nobody expected this. Everybody was expecting the NFL just to continue to grow. I wasn't. Don't misunderstand. But I mean, everybody involved in it believed, "There's nothing stopping us! There's nothing on TV out there that's any better. We still have all the ingredients. We have fresh, we have unscripted, we have we have drama.
"We have an unknown ending! We have everything it takes. We have stars." Yeah. They're sitting their stars down. (chuckles) They're suspending their stars like Brady. I will never understand that. But if you look at the NFL as a TV show...? Have you ever heard of a TV show -- other than Charlie Sheen. Have you ever heard of a TV series suspending its star for anything? I know the NFL's bigger than any one player, don't misunderstand.
But, man, they were so eager to suspend Brady. They spent two seasons trying to suspend Brady. So Brady's sitting for four weeks, and their numbers are down. People thought, you know what, you know what with Garoppolo, they're gonna be watching in droves just to see how the replacement does. And then when Brady comes back in Week Five against Cleveland, man, those ratings are gonna be off the charts!"
But it's not working out that day. The next thing that we learned: The NFL's ratings with women have taken a big hit, despite pink October. So the overall numbers are down -- opening night compared to last year -- 11 or 12%, and the general interest for the game among women is declining. Now, you and I know what the problem is. We could tell them. If they called here and said, "Why do you think we have a problem here, Mr. Limbaugh?" I could tell 'em. I could tell 'em in under five minutes.
Well, you may have heard... You may not have heard. Let me tell you in case you didn't hear. A player wanted to wear a special set of cleats this past Sunday, two days ago -- shoes -- to honor 9/11, and the league said (snickering), "There's no way, Pal! We're not giving you a waiver." The NFL has got a very strict uniform clause. Shirttails have to be tucked in. Have you noticed, by the way...? If you watch the NFL and pay any attention, have you noticed that NFL jerseys no longer tuck in?
They are tailored, they're cut so that they end right at where the pants, the waist is. 'Cause players hate tucking in their jerseys. An NFL jersey... I happen to know this. An NFL jersey, when you put it on over shoulder pads, will go down to below mid-thigh. That's how big it is. Because they have to stay tucked in, by rule, with all that contact and all that maneuvering around. So the players have gotten together with the equipment guys and they tailor those jerseys so they don't have to tuck 'em in.
It looks like they're tucked in unless they're wearing undershirts or T-shirts that are longer than the jersey which you are starting to see. The NFL does not like this. This is a violation of the uniform policy. You can't put your own sticker, you can't use your own headband, you can't wear your own decal in a helmet. This guy wanted to wear... Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning wanted to honor Johnny Unitas by wearing shoes that were black high-top shoes and he asked the league for permission. They turned him down.
"Nope! You've gotta wear the shoes the rest of the team wears," which I think in the day were white. So they're very strict about it. Well, the NFL has relented, and on Week 13, they're gonna allow every player to make his own social statement somewhere on his uniform. They're gonna allow a player to wear special cleats, special shoes. They're gonna allow players to use special sweat bands, wristbands, promoting whatever cause that is important to them. What do you think that's gonna do for ratings?
The National Football League is gonna let players speak their minds with their feet, but being the NFL, it's gonna be in a tightly scheduled and preapproved way. Sports Illustrated is reporting, "The league is preparing to set aside Week 13 for players to promote a charitable cause of their choice on their shoes and on their equipment." So in Week 13, the NFL is going to look like a social and cause-oriented billboard. Just keep in mind NFL viewership slipping among females of most demographics.
Among white women, the NFL lost quite a bit of steam, and yet look at all the efforts they're doing to attract women to the game and hold them. That's with pink October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So that's out there. It's deteriorating, is the point. Everything about it is deteriorating. The whole... I mean, last night, the second game, the 49ers and the Rams, what was the focal point of the game last night?
What was Kaepernick gonna do? Was Kaepernick gonna take a knee and would any of the other players join Kaepernick, and one other player did, Eric Reid. So they took a knee. They normally televise the anthem in these games but they did not last night so they could televise Kaepernick's protest. Remember when I worked at ESPN and they said, "We do not permit politics here! You violated a public trust with us!" Which, by the way, there never was a promise. They never extracted from me a guarantee not to talk about politics.
But they said after the fact that they did and that I had violated it, but I hadn't.
http://deadline.com/2016/09/broncos-panthers-nfl-kickoff-ratings-down-nbc-1201815899/
RUSH: The National Football League. Tell me what you think of this. We just learned, by the way... Oh! No, you didn't learn this 'cause I didn't get a chance to pass it on to you yesterday. The first thing is that the ratings for opening night the National Football League are down. Yes! Here it is. "Ratings for the NFL Are Down From a Year Ago." In some cases -- the original reporting for the overnights before the entire national rating sample had been calculated -- they were down like 11%.
This is the Sunday night game, not Thursday. The Sunday night game between the Garoppolos and the Arizona Cardinals, down 11% over the same game a year ago. It's not panic time by any stretch. But nobody expected this. Everybody was expecting the NFL just to continue to grow. I wasn't. Don't misunderstand. But I mean, everybody involved in it believed, "There's nothing stopping us! There's nothing on TV out there that's any better. We still have all the ingredients. We have fresh, we have unscripted, we have we have drama.
"We have an unknown ending! We have everything it takes. We have stars." Yeah. They're sitting their stars down. (chuckles) They're suspending their stars like Brady. I will never understand that. But if you look at the NFL as a TV show...? Have you ever heard of a TV show -- other than Charlie Sheen. Have you ever heard of a TV series suspending its star for anything? I know the NFL's bigger than any one player, don't misunderstand.
But, man, they were so eager to suspend Brady. They spent two seasons trying to suspend Brady. So Brady's sitting for four weeks, and their numbers are down. People thought, you know what, you know what with Garoppolo, they're gonna be watching in droves just to see how the replacement does. And then when Brady comes back in Week Five against Cleveland, man, those ratings are gonna be off the charts!"
But it's not working out that day. The next thing that we learned: The NFL's ratings with women have taken a big hit, despite pink October. So the overall numbers are down -- opening night compared to last year -- 11 or 12%, and the general interest for the game among women is declining. Now, you and I know what the problem is. We could tell them. If they called here and said, "Why do you think we have a problem here, Mr. Limbaugh?" I could tell 'em. I could tell 'em in under five minutes.
Well, you may have heard... You may not have heard. Let me tell you in case you didn't hear. A player wanted to wear a special set of cleats this past Sunday, two days ago -- shoes -- to honor 9/11, and the league said (snickering), "There's no way, Pal! We're not giving you a waiver." The NFL has got a very strict uniform clause. Shirttails have to be tucked in. Have you noticed, by the way...? If you watch the NFL and pay any attention, have you noticed that NFL jerseys no longer tuck in?
They are tailored, they're cut so that they end right at where the pants, the waist is. 'Cause players hate tucking in their jerseys. An NFL jersey... I happen to know this. An NFL jersey, when you put it on over shoulder pads, will go down to below mid-thigh. That's how big it is. Because they have to stay tucked in, by rule, with all that contact and all that maneuvering around. So the players have gotten together with the equipment guys and they tailor those jerseys so they don't have to tuck 'em in.
It looks like they're tucked in unless they're wearing undershirts or T-shirts that are longer than the jersey which you are starting to see. The NFL does not like this. This is a violation of the uniform policy. You can't put your own sticker, you can't use your own headband, you can't wear your own decal in a helmet. This guy wanted to wear... Peyton Manning. Peyton Manning wanted to honor Johnny Unitas by wearing shoes that were black high-top shoes and he asked the league for permission. They turned him down.
"Nope! You've gotta wear the shoes the rest of the team wears," which I think in the day were white. So they're very strict about it. Well, the NFL has relented, and on Week 13, they're gonna allow every player to make his own social statement somewhere on his uniform. They're gonna allow a player to wear special cleats, special shoes. They're gonna allow players to use special sweat bands, wristbands, promoting whatever cause that is important to them. What do you think that's gonna do for ratings?
The National Football League is gonna let players speak their minds with their feet, but being the NFL, it's gonna be in a tightly scheduled and preapproved way. Sports Illustrated is reporting, "The league is preparing to set aside Week 13 for players to promote a charitable cause of their choice on their shoes and on their equipment." So in Week 13, the NFL is going to look like a social and cause-oriented billboard. Just keep in mind NFL viewership slipping among females of most demographics.
Among white women, the NFL lost quite a bit of steam, and yet look at all the efforts they're doing to attract women to the game and hold them. That's with pink October, Breast Cancer Awareness Month. So that's out there. It's deteriorating, is the point. Everything about it is deteriorating. The whole... I mean, last night, the second game, the 49ers and the Rams, what was the focal point of the game last night?
What was Kaepernick gonna do? Was Kaepernick gonna take a knee and would any of the other players join Kaepernick, and one other player did, Eric Reid. So they took a knee. They normally televise the anthem in these games but they did not last night so they could televise Kaepernick's protest. Remember when I worked at ESPN and they said, "We do not permit politics here! You violated a public trust with us!" Which, by the way, there never was a promise. They never extracted from me a guarantee not to talk about politics.
But they said after the fact that they did and that I had violated it, but I hadn't.
http://deadline.com/2016/09/broncos-panthers-nfl-kickoff-ratings-down-nbc-1201815899/