This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

TV viewership of this year’s NFL dipped 8% year-on-year – but ratings did recover from a pre-election slump, thanks in part to the Dallas Cowboys.

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Prior to Donald Trump’s victory on 8 November, NFL games were down 14% on 2015, but viewing figures rebounded in the second half of the season: weeks 10-17 saw an overall drop of just 1%.

The Cowboys, who appeared in four straight primetime games, seemed to spur the recovery. “America’s Team” went 13-3 to top the NFC East, and their matchup on Thanksgiving against Washington drew 35.7 million viewers – the biggest regular-season TV figure since 1995.

Fox Sports’ executive vice-president of research Michael Mulvihill told the Chicago Tribune: “There’s not another brand in American sports that delivers that kind of impact. [The Cowboys] have always been the most popular team. Now we have a resurgence, and that’s great.”

But the overall number of people watching the NFL on TV was down. The average football game was watched by 16.5 million viewers this season – a drop of 1.4 million compared to 17.9 million in 2015.

ESPN’s Monday Night Football and Sunday Night Football on NBC, the two costliest rights deals, suffered the biggest decline, with drops of 12% and 10% respectively. Afternoon games on Fox and CBS, which each broadcast 27 games, were down 6% and 7% in total viewers.

The league insisted they were prepared for an election-season drop. “Presidential elections have always had an impact on our ratings, so we were prepared for a dip this season,” Brian Rolapp, the NFL’s executive vice president of media, told USA Today. “We’re pleased at how our viewership rebounded after the election and are looking forward to what should be a very competitive and exciting postseason.”

The presidential debates, Colin Kaepernick’s national anthem protest, a decline in quality of play, and a string of unappealing match-ups had also been mooted as reasons for people turning off earlier in the season.