Blip, or was this the year fans started tuning out the NFL?
HOUSTON — It may have been a blip, explained as much by the must-watch presidential debates as by some wholesale turn away from football. Or, decades from now, 2016 could be remembered as the season fans started falling out of love with the NFL.
TV ratings declined 8 per cent , with the presidential election partly, but not solely, to blame. Many of the league’s highest-profile contests were boring blowouts, including eight of the 10 playoff games leading to Sunday’s Super Bowl between the Patriots and Falcons.
Two NFL teams abandoned fan bases in St. Louis and San Diego in favour of their original home, Los Angeles, where neither team had played for decades. And the Raiders are considering leaving Oakland for Las Vegas , which, for all its renown as America’s gambling capital, has never supported its own big-league team.
A key segment of fantasy football, as big a driver of NFL growth as anything in recent years, saw its massive numbers plateau. According to Eilers & Krejcik Gaming, entry fees for daily fantasy games increased by 4 per cent in 2016, compared to 222 per cent the year before, as several states explored the legality of what some perceive as gambling.