NFL Suffers Ratings Disaster in First Game of New Season

By Ross Kelly August 9, 2018 at 10:16am

The ratings for the NFL’s Pro Football Hall of Fame Game last week picked up right where last season’s Super Bowl left off — and that’s not a good thing.

After Super Bowl LII had the lowest viewership for the championship game since Super Bowl XLIII in 2009, the 2018 Hall of Fame Game had its lowest viewership since 1998, Austin Karp of SportsBusiness Journal reported.

Karp said the exhibition between the Ravens and Bears — the unofficial start of the 2018 NFL season — registered 6.78 million viewers. Last year’s game between the Cowboys and Cardinals was watched by 8.25 million people.

That’s a 17.8 percent decrease and the lowest audience for the Hall of Fame Game since 6.3 million people watched the Bucs and Steelers play two decades ago.

This was the second year in a row that the Hall of Fame Game was played on a Thursday night. Before that, the game was always played on a Saturday, Sunday or Monday since its inception in 1962.

NBC drew 4.7 overnight rating for Hall of Fame game (Ravens-Bears). That's down 13% from Cowboys-Cardinals in 2017. When game was last on a Sunday night in 2015 (no 2016 game), NBC drew a 6.9 for Vikes-Steelers. Ravens-Bears still delivered NBC a primetime win

— Austin Karp (@AustinKarp) August 3, 2018

Neither the Bears nor the Ravens drew many viewers during the 2017 season for their primetime games.

Of the 50 most watched games during last season, only one game featured either of the teams. A Week 14 matchup between the Ravens and Steelers clocked in as the 41st-most-watched game of the 2017 season.

Variety reports that this year’s Hall of Fame Game also suffered a drop in the all-important demographic of adults ages 18 to 49. That demo had a 1.8 rating for this year’s game compared with 2.3 for last year’s contest.

Did you watch the 2018 Pro Football Hall of Fame Game?

Overall, the Hall of Fame Game still produced a winning night for NBC, which defeated all of the other networks in both ratings and total viewership.

But a decrease in viewership from the previous season is a trend that has carried over from the 2017 season.

NFL ratings dropped by 9.7 percent during the 2017 season compared with the prior year. ESPN’s Darren Rovell said that a typical game was watched by 1.6 million fewer people during the 2017 season compared with the 2016 season.

The total audience for the Hall of Fame ceremony on Saturday night held steady compared with the game played two days earlier.

The ceremony was simulcast on ESPN and NFL Network and had 1.18 million viewers combined. Last year’s ceremony produced 1.17 million viewers.

The NFL was likely hoping for more viewers this year with big names and personalities such as Randy Moss and Ray Lewis. Last year’s group of inductees included the likes of LaDainian Tomlinson, Kurt Warner and Jerry Jones.

Terrell Owens’ personal Hall of Fame induction ceremony was not broadcast so there are no ratings to report.

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