LEICESTER, ENGLAND – MAY 07: Captain Wes Morgan and manager Claudio Ranieri of Leicester City lift the Premier League Trophy after the Barclays Premier League match between Leicester City and Everton at The King Power Stadium on May 7, 2016 in Leicester, United Kingdom. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)

All season long, there has been much angst stateside over the NFL’s ratings decline as the league and the television networks try to figure out why the most popular sports and entertainment property in America is losing television viewers. Well, the NFL isn’t the only major sports league worldwide that’s suffering from falling ratings.

In fact, another sports global superpower is seeing declines on the home front as well. In England, ratings for Sky Sports’ coverage of the Premier League is down a whopping 19% so far through the first two months of the season. 

Via the Daily Mail:

There will be considerable concern around football that viewing figures for Sky Sports’ live Premier League matches this season have dropped by a whopping 19 per cent.

The dramatic year-on-year fall has occurred in the first season of a new rights deal with Sky and BT Sport having paid over £5billion between them for their three-year contracts for the match packages. 

The surprise slide in Sky’s ratings comes despite an exciting start to the season plus the huge hype surrounding the managerial tussle between Pep Guardiola, Jose Mourinho and Jurgen Klopp.

While the Premier League can’t exactly blame the US Presidential election for flagging viewership across the Atlantic, a few of the reasons given for the decline include illegal streaming of the games and the Olympics. Keep in mind that Premier League fans in America actually have it way better when trying to watch on television than fans in England do. Sky’s television package shows 126 live games throughout the season. NBC makes every single game legally available through television or NBC Sports Live Extra.

It’s the amount of the drop that might be most troubling here for Sky and the Premier League, losing one-fifth of your viewership is a huge number. And considering there have been so many intriguing storylines to kick off the season with Leicester City trying to defend their title, Liverpool in contention once again, and Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho coaching Manchester City and Manchester United respectively, the decline has to be even more of a surprise and a concern.

[Daily Mail]

Comments are closed.