The league brought this on themselves.
I love the part about how the ratings decline may not have happened if Zeke played and the game was closer. You can’t blame this on the Anthem Protest.
https://247sports.com/nfl/dallas-co...-TV-ratings-plummet-in-blowout-loss-110801823
The Dallas Cowboys are typically the NFL's main ratings draw, but in the wake of yet another blowout loss with practically half of their roster sitting out (some of which is by the NFL's own design), their TV ratings are beginning to take a serious tumble.
According to Barry Horn of
The Dallas Morning News, the Cowboys drew a 30.0 rating in the Dallas-Fort Worth area on Sunday. In a normal game, this would be an excellent rating, but by Sunday Night Football standards for the Cowboys, it is miserable. It is the fourth lowest rating the Cowboys have drawn on NBC's Sunday Night Football, and as a point of comparison, their Week 1 tilt with the New York Giants in that primetime slot drew a rating of 36.5.
The game still did well nationally, beating every other Sunday Night Football Game this season except for the Cowboys-Giants opener with a 13.5 rating, but losing such a large number of viewers in Dallas for a marquee game is hardly ideal for a league that is suffering through a ratings crisis as it is.
The Cowboys also lost viewers a week ago against the Atlanta Falcons, another blowout. That game got a rating of 27.4 in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, with all four of their other games played in that 4:25 PM time slot drawing a rating better than the 30.0 the Cowboys got against the Eagles.
Perhaps if
Ezekiel Elliott had been able to play, the Cowboys would have kept the game closer and more fans would have watched. That was the NFL's decision, and now they are forced to suffer the consequences of it. It's hard to blame national anthem protests for declining ratings in this one.
