{"id":1256,"date":"2024-02-12T16:58:36","date_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:58:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/headlinegram.com\/?p=1256"},"modified":"2024-02-12T16:58:36","modified_gmt":"2024-02-12T16:58:36","slug":"2024-super-bowl-will-be-the-ultimate-ratings-touchdown-for-a-resurgent-league","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/headlinegram.com\/2024-super-bowl-will-be-the-ultimate-ratings-touchdown-for-a-resurgent-league\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Super Bowl will be the ultimate ratings touchdown for a resurgent league"},"content":{"rendered":"
LAS VEGAS \u2014 In the spirit of Sin City, don\u2019t bet against the NFL.<\/p>\n
Sunday\u2019s\u00a0big game\u00a0looks set to be one of the premiere American cultural events of the year,\u00a0pitting\u00a0defending champions the Kansas City Chiefs against the five-time Super Bowl-winning San Francisco 49ers.<\/p>\n
Add in the mere hope of an appearance from international pop superstar\u00a0Taylor Swift, and you\u2019ve got the makings of a juggernaut.<\/p>\n
The expected sky-high ratings will likely be a capstone to one of the most remarkable years in NFL history, at least in terms of television viewership. The league \u2014 not long ago seen by some detractors as a fading enterprise tarnished by controversy \u2014 could reach the apex of its influence and reach.<\/p>\n
America\u2019s obsession with football showed no signs of abating in 2023, cementing the NFL as one of the last vestiges of the monoculture in an era of fractured media consumption. NFL games made up a staggering 93 of the top 100 broadcast programs last year, according to data from Nielsen, a leading media measurement firm.<\/p>\n
The increase was driven in part by popular \u201cMonday Night Football\u201d simulcasts on ESPN and ABC, not to mention the headline-grabbing\u00a0courtship between Swift\u00a0and\u00a0star Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce.<\/p>\n
NFL games are also more widely accessible on streaming platforms, if you\u2019re willing to shell out for subscriptions \u2014 there\u2019s the Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV, for example, and Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime Video.<\/p>\n
NFL programming continues to rise as a share of overall watch time, too: 38.62% of national traditional TV viewing on Jan. 28 was dedicated to the AFC and NFC championship games, according to Inscape, the data division of the consumer electronics company Vizio. Including studio coverage of those playoff games, the NFL accounted for nearly half of the traditional TV viewing minutes watched for the day, at 46.29%.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs national linear [traditional] TV audiences shrink, the NFL is becoming one of the only games in town for remaining audiences and advertisers, and that shows from a programming standpoint,\u201d said John Cassillo, an analyst at TVREV, a research group.<\/p>\n
Syracuse University professor and TV historian Robert Thompson, who predicted that Sunday\u2019s game could draw a whopping 114 million viewers, echoed that sentiment: \u201cThe Super Bowl is really the last of the truly communal TV experiences, making it not only immune to the audience decline that all other programming types are experiencing, but in fact positioned for growth.\u201d<\/p>\n
TV audiences also appear to be hungering for collective joy following the brutal isolation of the height of the Covid years.<\/p>\n
\u201cPost-pandemic, there\u2019s that ongoing desire to be with and around other people\u201d to watch this game, said University of Nevada, Las Vegas sociology professor and pop culture researcher Michael Borer, predicting that Swift would move the needle if she shows up at Allegiant Stadium to cheer on Kelce.<\/p>\n
In the early 2010s, the NFL looked rock solid. The Super Bowl played in 2010, won\u00a031-17 by the New Orleans Saints\u00a0over the Indianapolis Colts, drew a then-record 106 million viewers, the first time the big game\u2019s viewership had grown to nine digits. The average television viewership in the subsequent regular season reached 17.9 million.<\/p>\n
It seemed at the time\u00a0<\/strong>like there was nowhere to go but up as another record was broken in the 2015 game when an all-time high of 114.8 million Americans watched\u00a0New England\u2019s dramatic 28-24 victory\u00a0over the Seattle Seahawks. Regular-season viewership went up to an average of 18.1 million that year.<\/p>\n But then something happened on the way to ratings infinity: Viewership went stagnant and, gasp, even declined.<\/p>\n Nielsen data shows that average television viewership for regular-season games dipped in the Donald Trump era, dropping to some 15 million in 2017.<\/p>\n