NFL pregame shows losing viewers right across the board
Ratings are down for the Sunday NFL pregame shows that air on each of the three major networks that air such programming every week, according to Bob Raissman of the New York Daily News.
"ESPN “Sunday Countdown” isn’t the only pregame show taking a hit in the ratings department. Through 10 weeks, both CBS’ “The NFL Today” and Fox’s “NFL Sunday” numbers are also down — more than ESPN.
CBS’ “The NFL Today” viewership is down 17% compared to a similar point last year while Fox’s pregame is down 15% from where it was last season. Like we said about ESPN, if the slide continues maybe the suits start thinking about tinkering with elements of these shows, including the cast."
Raissman does note that NFL Network's pregame program has seen ratings increase slightly this season, but that isn't close to enough to account for the drop-off ESPN, CBS and Fox have reportedly experienced.
Oddly, this is kind of nice to hear. It indicates that networks with NFL rights can't simply put the league's logo on terrible programming and still make a killing. It's been said that everything the NFL touches turns to gold, especially when it comes to television, but I think greater amounts of football fans are beginning to wise up to the fact that there's limited educational or entertainment value attached to these cookie-cutter shows, all of which lack substance and originality.
Frankly, it's been years since I've given a crap what talking heads like Shannon Sharpe, Boomer Esiason, Dan Marino, Jimmy Johnson, Michael Strahan, Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, Keyshawn Johnson and Tom Jackson have to say. I'm just happy more of us are realizing how useless NFL pregame shows have become. NFL pregame shows across the board are little more than poor attempts at comedy shows (hello, Rob Riggle) with little fresh insight and actual football analysis.
The internet has been around for a while now, but as Twitter continues to grow and more football info -- fantasy and/or reality -- is reaching our fingertips, we're finding excuses to keep from turning on our televisions before 1:00 p.m. ET arrives each Sunday.
Good for us.
It's overkill across the board. You have ESPN with daiiy NFL shows, an NFL network, websites, fantasy. The networks would be better served with the old 30 minute model but since the networks also need to pay bills they bloat the shows to sell ads. There are too many talking heads. The best format would be one host and two analysts.
The pre-game shows in the NFL Today Brent-Phyllis-Irv-Greek days were special because that was pretty much it. Today we are drowning in information.
I'm interested to see what "Fantasy Football Now" gets on ESPN2....Out of these 3 blunders, I'd have to pick FOX solely because I respect Jay Glazer for standing up against those Bristol Bastards.
I feel NFL'ed out by the time 11am Sunday morning comes around that I just want to watch the game because every story in the league is hashed and rehashed during the week. I watch the Prem game on FOX Soccer instead since it's usually the best game on the fixture list on the weekend.
I have not watched a pre-game show in 10 years. Great thing about sports is talk is useless because they play the game.
When you have 5-6 guys lined up as experts and they all fight for the 20 seconds they each get by talking over the other guy's words then you get nothing.
They'd double their ratings by showing nothing but live odds boards from Vegas and Inactive lists.
I tuned into the NFL Network yesterday.All I heard was a bunch of laughing hyena's.Ditka and Jackson have no integrity and add nothing to their pregame shows.
the best pregame is fox. the worst by far is espn's. they have like 25 panelists. their biggest problem is they hire whoever just retired yesterday with the most rings and or trophies regardless of how much media training they had or didnt have.
i think the reason why the pregame shows' rating are down, more games throughout the week. there is a pregame show on nfl network that begins at 5PM!!!
then there are four on sunday, with espn starting theirs at DAWN. then there are two on monday.
I despise the NFL's "You're a fan of your team? You must really just be a fan of the NFL, so here's this stuff that you surely care about." television model.
@toucherandrich @greshandzo @billsimmons RT @awfulannouncing NFL pregame shows losing viewers across the board http://t.co/9GK3uScl
@awfulannouncing I wonder what the ratings look like for the Fantasy Football opinion/advice pre-game shows.
@instreamsports @awfulannouncing i will take the espn fantasy football preview show on espn2 on sunday morning over any of the pregame shows
@BlatantHomerism Exactly. I'd think some of the diminshed audience is going there, or to other FF-related programs.
Did you see Tom Jackson's inane rant on Jay Cutler because he didn't greet people in the hallway heading to the game. Ridiculous.
