According to local CBS affiliate WWL-TV, Super Bowl LIII drew a paltry 26.1 overnight Nielsen rating in the New Orleans market, a sharp decline from last year's overnight rating of 52.4.
The Times-Picayune reported the overnight rating for the New England Patriots' 13-3 win over the Los Angeles Rams was the lowest of any metered market, and the lowest overnight rating for a Super Bowl ever in New Orleans.
Those numbers were expected. The question is how much would a marginal market like New Orleans, which is a small fraction of either the New England or Southern California area markets, impact overall viewership numbers? The impact is likely far less than Saints fans might think. Of course they can take credit there is a verifiable connection of viewership among more major markets across the country not watching the game because of Saints fans disgruntled propaganda. I wonder if that has been measured or is measurable though.
“Propaganda” is a good word for it. It was a bad call, but Saints fans sold it like it was the only time a bad call was ever made in a playoff game (on Twitter a Saints fan was quoted as saying Goodell better address this before another team gets screwed
) As a result, they convinced fans around the country to boycott the game, not only in NOLA.
It was a bad call. There’s no question about it. But I could list numerous bad calls I’ve seen in playoff games (a few of them were against our Cowboys; Dez’ catch/non-catch comes to mind immediately/still hurts, but I didn’t sue the league or take to the streets.) There were many other missed calls in that same Saints/Rams playoff game...one frequently mentioned by Rams’ fans is a Goff face mask that should have been called against the Saints that would have kept a drive going. If the refs made the DPI call, it would have likely iced the game for the Saints...but even that’s not guaranteed. The Saints could have fumbled on the next play and the Rams might have taken it to the house. When the Saints had a chance to win the game in OT, Brees threw an INT which sealed the game for the Rams.
I’m sick of hearing all this propaganda!! It’s been non-stop for the past 2+ weeks, and now they think they’ve won some sort of victory....they’re going to beat this dead horse all the way to the 2019 season. ugh.
Clearly I needed to vent. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity once again.
