National Football League TV ratings are up for the first time since 2015, an improvement NFL and television executives attribute to new stars and a fading national-anthem controversy.
Ratings for professional football — the most valuable type of TV programming — are up 5 percent compared with last year.
NFL broadcasts are averaging 15.8 million viewers this season, boosted by record-high scoring and more competitive games.
The top 15 shows this fall were NFL games, a sign that despite ratings erosion in past seasons, football still is the most popular programming on television.
Troy Vincent, the NFL’s executive vice president of football operations, said ratings were boosted by the quality of play, a crop of young stars and a dearth of off-field distractions, such as players protesting during the national anthem.
“These were conversations that were polarizing around the sport. Now we’re talking around the sport,” said Vincent.
CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus said new stars and close games aren’t solely responsible for boosting numbers.
“I do think there is so much unpleasantness out there today and so much divisiveness between different groups that the refuge of NFL football is probably more appealing now than it’s been in a long time,” McManus said.
A growing number of viewers over 50 years old are watching the NFL this season, according to Nielsen.
People over 50 view player protests during the national anthem—which have become more muted this season—more negatively than the general population, according to a WSJ/NBC News poll from August.
The better ratings have not yet translated into higher revenue for the networks.
The problem is, advertisers typically buy commercial time before the season starts and negotiate ad prices based on ratings from the previous year, and last year’s ratings were down 10 percent from 2016-17.
As a result, ad revenue for NFL broadcasters like CBS Corp., Comcast Corp.’s NBC, Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN and 21st Century Fox Inc. fell 19 percent in the first two months of the season, according to Standard Media Index.
“The effects of the lower audiences last year are spilling into this season,” said James Fennessy, chief executive officer of the advertising research firm.
If this year’s NFL ratings increase holds through the end of the season, however, it could mean those TV networks will see a bump in advertising revenue next season.