NFL viewers are down this year. And apparently so is gambling.
This is the first time in 6 years that the 190 Nevada Sportsbooks have had a decline in the amount of bets taken. The total amount is down 3.9% in September, which equals out to about $6 million down during the same month last year.
One thing we never figured to see a decrease in would be gambling, especially in today’s market, but that just gives you an idea of how disinterested people have been in the NFL this year.
College football viewership has been up. And the matchups have been fantastic. But the NFL games have been so dreadful that even the betters have stopped giving a damn about the games.
I really wish they could give the numbers for CFB and the NFL separately, because I’m almost positive that college football betting is up this year, and NFL has declined significantly enough that it’s resulted in an overall decline. The NFL matchups are what has been killing this number. The NFL primetime games are what brings in the most betters, and, generally, the most viewers, but those national games have been terrible this year. Just to prove a point, I’ll lay out the national games through the first month of the season.
Week 1 (Sept 8-12)
Thurs Night: Panthers 20 @ Broncos 21
Sun Afternoon: Giants 20 @ Cowboys 19
Sun Night: Patriots 23 @ Cardinals 21
Mon Night: Steelers 38 @ Redskins 26 / Rams 0 @ 49ers 28
Now, the first game (Panthers @ Broncos) was great, along with the Sunday national games. They were all close, and had big names playing. Week 1 was fine – the hype was up on social media, and things seemed fine, even in the first week of the regular season. Monday night, however, was awful. 2 blowouts with teams that were not expected to be very good at all.
Week 2 (Sept 15-19)
Thurs Night: Jets 37 @ Bills 31
Sun Afternoon: Colts 20 @ Broncos34
Sun Night: Packers 14 @ Vikings 17
Mon Night: Eagles 29 @ Bears 14
There were a few good ones in this, especially on Sunday, but this started the trend of having horrible games on Thursday and Monday night. Nobody gave a damn about the Bills and Jets, and the same was true of the Monday night matchup between the Bears and the Eagles. There are literally no stars with any of those teams, and the Bills / Jets game was so bad that Rex Ryan fired his offensive coordinator the next day. The Bears game went from bad to worse when Jay Cutler was knocked out of the game.
Week 3 (Sept 22-26)
Thurs Night: Texans 0 @ Patriots 27
Sun Afternoon: Steelers 3 @ Eagles 34
Sun Night: Bears 17 @ Cowboys 31
Mon Night: Falcons 45 @ Saints 32
Thursday night was never even a game, even with Jacoby Brissett starting at QB with Jimmy Garrapolo out. It doesn’t help that the biggest star in the NFL, Tom Brady, was suspended for the 3rd consecutive game, and you lose all of your fringe fans on top of the ones that just didn’t give a damn about either of these teams. Sunday’s Eagles / Steelers game was a blowout early – so bad that they moved from the national game to show one of the regional games that was tighter. The Bears were playing Sunday night without Jay Cutler, and nobody is interested in Brian Hoyer playing QB for Chicago – the Cowboys were, again, the only thing making that game watchable. The Falcons & Saints had to go head to head against the first Presidential Debate between Trump and Clinton, and it failed big time, drawing the lowest rating for a Monday Night Football game in ESPN’s history of showing it.
Week 4 (Sept 29-Oct 3)
Thurs Night: Dolphins 7 @ Bengals 22
Sun Afternoon: Cowboys 24 @ 49ers 17
Sun Night: Chiefs 14 @ Steelers 43
Mon Night: Giants 10 @ Vikings 24
The only game that was really worth watching was the Cowboys and the 49ers in this batch, and that’s only because of Dak Prescott and Zeke Elliot. The 49ers roster is terrible, and the team is bad, and the fact that it was a close game is the only thing that kept eyeballs on it. The Thursday night Dolphins / Bengals tilt was boring from the kick, with awful uniforms and even worse play on the field. The Sunday night game was a blowout early, with the Steelers leading 22-0 after the 1st, 29-0 at the half, and 36-0 with 11 minutes left in the 3rd quarter. Nobody watched, and who wants to bet on the Chiefs besides degenerates? The Giants and Vikings game was booooooring. Sam Bradford and Eli Manning in a game that scored a total of 34 points? No Adrian Peterson. ODB Jr was held in check the whole game, so there was really nothing to watch with him either.
The prime-time matchups have been terrible. Now, it’s not completely the NFL’s fault, because, for the most part, about 90% of this league is mediocre, and new superstars have not taken the place of ones that have left. Boring games between boring teams doesn’t equal numbers. The fact that the Bears had 2 of these national TV windows is awful planning.
The play has been abysmal, and you can’t figure out who is good and who isn’t. For example, the Steelers go to Philly one week and lose 34-3, and then blast the Chiefs 43-14 the next week, both in primetime. Even fans of the team turned those games off.
Unless the NFL can figure out how to make matchups more interesting, and they learn to develop more stars, these numbers will keep going down. Nobody wants to bet on games they don’t want to watch.
