To start with the basics, “Sunday Night Football, television’s highest-rated prime-time show for five years running, has seen a 10 percent viewership drop so far this season. Cable’s top sports property, “Monday Night Football,” is down 19 percent — the series’ slowest start in a decade. Through two games, “Thursday Night Football” viewership is down 15 percent” (Ourand, Karp, & Kaplan, "Time to panic over declining viewership? ", 2016).
All three of the prime time games are down by at least 10 percent two weeks into the season. This one stat should be enough to make the NFL very concerned for the future.
Consumers are watching sports in a variety of ways in the current day in age. Led by live TV via cable, many are starting to migrate to over the top services, social media and illegal streaming. Why watch the game when you can see all of the stats and highlights on Twitter? Or why pay for an expensive cable bill, when a simple Google search can locate an illegal stream of games. Also, many bars are starting to carry NFL Sunday ticket which means dozens of fans can watch games for “free”. The day of age where consumers would watch live TV at home is starting to …show more content…
He stated, “Last year we watched a lot of sport events on live TV, while this year we have Sunday Ticket and Center Ice, we watch a lot less live TV. Not only that, but with Sportscenter now on late night, I can miss the games during the night and watch the late night Sportscenter and be caught up. Those are the two major differences.” This is something I noticed that I do a lot of also, which would add to the viewership numbers of over the top services, a directly competitor of live TV. Also, as we get older and busier, it is easier to look up scores and highlights on social media like Instagram and Twitter. This allows access to all the important information and plays that happened within the games that