Total draft audience falls three percent
TV ratings are as permanent as tattoos. And some ratings, like some tattoos, look better than others.
The NFL liked the tattoo that it got from the ratings from the first night of the draft, prompting it to send out a press release on Friday touting the fact that the TV audience bested 2023 by six percent. For the second and third day of the draft, there were no press releases.
That's because Friday's audience was the smallest since 2012. Via Sports Business Journal, Saturday's total audience dropped three percent from 2023. For NFL Network, which had been slashing costs and shrinking shows for no apparent reason, the audience for Saturday fell by 14.5 percent from 2023, down to 498,000.
Even with the Thursday bump, the audience for the draft dropped by three percent.
While still impressive for an event that truly is the ultimate reality show about nothing, since they could do the draft by group text if they wanted, the NFL always wants more, especially on a year-over-year basis. When there's slippage, there's hell to pay behind the scenes, with frantic efforts to get things turned around ASAFP.
