NFL overnights in Week 9 give Sunday Night Football another double digit drop, even down against Fox regional action

The NFL is really hoping that once the Presidential votes are all counted, the focus of the nation will go back to football. Once again, overnight ratings for the NFL’s primetime showcase are down significantly from last year. For the Denver Broncos-Oakland Raiders Sunday Night Football game on NBC, the Peacock had some good news/bad for the overnights. The good news is that the game won the night against primetime competition:

Broncos-Raiders on NBC’s Sunday Night Football posted 11.7/19 overnight rating (not including digital) as NBC won night in primetime

— NBC Sports PR (@NBCSportsPR) November 7, 2016

Ok, that’s good, right? Well, not so fast, The 11.7 number is down 20% from last year’s Philadelphia-Dallas game which registered a 14.7 overnight. Making matters worse, Sports Media Watch notes that this is the lowest-rated SNF Week 9 game dating back to 2011 when Indianapolis-Houston registered an 11.4 overnight.

And adding insult to injury, Fox’s Week 9 regional window which sent Cowboys-Browns to  about one-third of the country received a 12.4 overnight rating. It was down 9% from last year’s Week 9 Fox regional window, but beat SNF.

The key here is that the ratings continue to average lower numbers from last year. Whether it’s the election, bad matchups, poorly officiated games, lower viewership among women, anger over anthem protests, warmer weather in normally cold weather markets, concussions, domestic violence or cord cutting, the NFL is experiencing a lower viewership than in previous years.

It continues to have officials inside the league offices scratching their heads. And while the conventional wisdom has ratings rising once the election is over, one wonders if they’ll actually break even this year or if the numbers are too low to catch up. We’ll find out in Week 10.

[Sports Media Watch 1, 2]