After two years of massive TV ratings declines largely due to anthem protests, the NFL finally stopped the bleeding and posted a small gain as the anthem protests all but disappeared.

Ratings for 2016 and 2017 were down nearly 18 percent combined, but ratings for the 2018 regular NFL season finally bottomed out, according to USA Today.

The paper notes that NBC and CBS and cable sports network ESPN were each up eight percent while Fox saw a smaller four percent hike in viewers.

Overall, that is a five percent gain, Sporting News reported:

During the 2018 regular season, the NFL’s average audience grew 5 percent to 15.8 million viewers. Compare that with the 2017 season when TV viewership slumped 9.7 percent. Or the 2016 season, when TV audiences slid 8 percent after a record-setting 2015 season.

The NFL was also a top draw for TV in general:

Live NFL games were the ultimate reality TV this fall, accounting for 46 of the top 50 telecasts during the season. Each of the league’s five TV packages on CBS, NBC, Fox Sports and ESPN boasted viewership increases, ranging from 2 percent for Fox’s late Sunday afternoon game window to 8 percent for ESPNs “Monday Night Football.” Fox’s “America’s Game of the Week” and NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” ranked as the most-watched shows on all of TV and prime time, respectively, ahead of scripted dramas and comedies such as AMC’s “The Walking Dead” and CBS’ “The Big Bang Theory.”

Final viewership numbers from the 2018 NFL regular season pic.twitter.com/OzbT3j0bAx — NFL Media (@NFLMedia) January 2, 2019

CBS Sports Chairman Sean McManus offered his ideas on why the numbers came in stronger for 2018:

I think there’s a number of reasons. Sports in October. “There have been a lot of really good story lines: young quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes playing well, the Los Angeles Rams have driven a lot of interest and there have been several overtime games. The NFL has and for the foreseeable future will be the strongest programming on television.

The 2018 season did not start with a rise in the numbers, but as the season wore on, the falling numbers stopped and some small gains occurred. The halt in the decline occurred at the same time that players widely stopped protesting during the national anthem, leaving only about five. The protests have also not received much coverage since the networks stopped airing the anthem. It is unknown how much this affected viewership but the massive declines coincided with the most widespread coverage of the protests.

Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston.