The ratings for NFL Sunday are in, and they aren’t pretty. Apparently taking a knee during the playing of our national anthem in “solidarity” with other anthem kneelers and as a way to “resist” President Donald Trump has rubbed some red-blooded Americans the wrong way.
Although the number of anthem kneelers significantly decreased this Sunday and executives’ decision to swing to commercial during the anthem in an attempt to protect their pocketbooks, the NFL still took a hard hit from viewers.
Deadline reports:
With a 11.0/19 in metered-market results, last night’s SNF was down 5% from last week when the Washington Redskins beat the Oakland Raiders 27-10. As the league took another week-by-week ratings hit just a month into the 2017-18 season, Sunday’s game also was down a bit year-to-year. Compared with the then-season-low of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ 43-14 smackdown of the Kansas City Chiefs in primetime on October 2, 2016, last night’s SNF dipped 2% in the early numbers.
Ouch.
On Monday morning, ESPN changed their tune in light of the Las Vegas massacre, choosing to air the anthem in a sign of unity.
“Although ‘MNF’ has shown the anthem in previous seasons, the production team decided to make a change this year, even as the idea of protests were looming, to use the time to highlight matchups and story lines, a network source said,” reported The Washington Post.
Despite the massive death and injury toll from the Las Vegas shooting, two players chose to sit while the anthem played before their Monday night football game kicked off.
Classy stuff.
via Daily Wire
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