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Mahomes-Burrow vs. Harris-Trump

Early ratings suggest that, despite historical precedents, this election has zero hope of competing with the NFL for the hearts and minds of viewers. Welcome to America.

nfl patrick mahomes joe burrow
Sports media executives that I spoke with this week cited their internal research suggesting that political theater will have a de minimis impact on sports TV viewing this year. Photo: Jamie Squire/Getty Images
John Ourand
September 20, 2024

On Sunday afternoon, soon after the NFL’s 1 p.m. ET slate of games had kicked off, news broke that the Secret Service had thwarted another assassination attempt on Donald Trump in Florida. Obviously, football is a game played by men in tights, while the assassination of a former president and current candidate (if not frontrunner) woul be election-shaping, historical international news. Sports TV executives prepared for news alerts to gravitate viewers over to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, etcetera. After all, election cycles historically deplete the NFL’s ratings. As I’ve reported before, NFL viewership was down 8 percent in 2016 and 7 percent in Covid-plagued 2020.