So I suggested a few months ago, after Vikings quarterback Sam Bradford went down, that Colin Kaepernick would be a great replacement. Well, although I haven’t watched the Vikes this season, I understand that the backup quarterback,
Case Keenum, has performed well beyond my expectations. The Vikes made the playoffs with great ease.
So I see I was wrong. The Vikes made the playoffs with great ease. Kudos to them. (Try not getting knocked in the head – the whole concussion thing makes me queasy about watching.) But how did the other teams in the league perform? Could any of them have used a Super Bowl caliber quarterback? Or are we awash in great quarterbacks? I haven’t been paying attention … but I’m having a visual of an ocean with great quarterbacks swimming about in a feeding frenzy over the chum thrown into the water. Yeah, it’s about as ridiculous as the concept that there is an excess of Super Bowl quarterbacks out there.
I’ll have my Arts Editor work on that.
But speaking of Kaepernick, an update on a change.org petition calling for the boycott of the league until Kaepernick is signed to a team is proclaiming victory despite its palpable failure:
This is the final week of the NFL Season, on December 31st. With the exception of a Jan 1st, 2017 game, Colin Kaepernick has not played a single NFL game in 2017.
This is incredibly sad. However, the impact of his absence has been felt not only throughout the league, but throughout America, and even the world.
You have boycotted NFL games, resulting in one of the worst TV ratings seasons this league has ever seen. ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” games had its WORST season since 2007. NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” games had its WORST season since 2008. (source: https://twitter.com/AustinKarp)
Overall, more than 150 MILLION less people watched the NFL this season than last season, a total 9% drop in viewership.
To those that say “well, millennials don’t watch TV anymore”, TV viewership of the five NBA Christmas games ROSE 21% than last year. (source: https://twitter.com/AustinKarp)
Many articles (like the one linked below) have listed many reasons why people haven’t watched, like Donald Trump, to concussions, “older white fans” who are upset, how people watch TV…but rarely mention Kaep’s treatment. We wrote about this in an update last month. The good news is that more people have noticed this “new” reason, but won’t give it the credit it deserves. That’s fine. THE RATINGS WILL STILL SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.
Seems sloppy, just from the language. 150 million people? No, that’s half the size of the United States, or a bit less. You need better terminology to characterize how viewership has declined. And how does a rise in 5 NBA games connect to the topic, or for that matter Millenials’ TV habits? A little more work might clarify the worthiness of these claims to acceptable levels, but right now they just raise red flags for me.
