Bulls-of-the-Week
It’s been the best of times and the worst of times for the NFL as it transitioned from a very successful Week 1 into Week 2 and Thursday Night Football on Amazon Prime. The 31-10 dud of a game between the victorious Buffalo Bills (2-0) and Miami Dolphins (1-1) was made worse by the third concussion in two years for Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.
On one hand, the NFL kicked off its best start ever with a full slate of 16 games in Week 1. American rights-holders averaged 21 million viewers per game, up 12 per cent year-over-year and an all-time record for Week 1. The numbers were similarly strong north of the border, where last year’s Super Bowl set an all-time viewership record with an average audience of 10 million Canadians.
The 27-20 opening night win for the defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs over the Baltimore Ravens on Thursday, Sept. 5 attracted 29.2 million viewers across television and digital and marked the second biggest Week 1 kickoff since 2006.
Even the “First Friday” streaming unicorn that saw the Philadelphia Eagles beat the Green Bay Packers on NBC’s Peacock platform was a winner. In what was the first Friday night NFL game in 54 years and an historic foray into Sao Paulo, Brazil, the game was streamed by 14 million Americans. That was the most since last year’s AFC wild card playoff game between Kansas City and Miami (also on Peacock).
The television magnet that is the Dallas Cowboys (winners over Cleveland) engaged 23.93 million Americans in the biggest Sunday afternoon game. That game not only featured the richest team in the world — the $10.32-billion Cowboys — but drove plenty of curiosity related to the debut of Tom Brady in his 10-year, $375-million broadcast deal with FOX Sports.
Meanwhile, Sunday Night Football scored 22.7 million viewers on NBC (Detroit over the LA Rams), and Monday Night Football on ESPN tallied 20.4 million (San Francisco over the New York Jets). Keep in mind that the ESPN number was generated without several million DirecTV satellite television subscribers. They were blacked out as Disney turned out the lights on ESPN on DirecTV in a carriage dispute that marred Week 1 and continues into Week 2.
Bears-of-the-Week
Yet all of those extraordinary bull market television numbers and the sense that the NFL was on its way to its best season ever don’t pack the same punch since Tagovailoa was concussed in the third quarter. The irony was that the hit came from Buffalo’s Damar Hamlin, playing his second NFL start since almost losing his own life in a game against the Cincinnati Bengals two years ago.
What was an almost flawless Week 1 became a very muted start to Week 2, with all of the post-game attention on the Tagovailoa brain injury. It’s hard for the NFL and its broadcast partners to celebrate anything when a young star in the league is being urged to retire by dozens of player voices and others in the media. The NFL has always been a guilty pleasure, especially when it comes to head shots. How large of a pall that casts on The Shield depends on where Tagovailoa and his dangerous concussion history go from here.
Tom Mayenknecht is the host of The Sport Market on Sportsnet 650 on Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Vancouver-based sport business commentator and principal in Emblematica Brand Builders provides a behind-the-scenes look at the sport business stories that matter most to fans. Follow Mayenknecht at: twitter.com/TheSportMarket.
Bookmark our website and support our journalism: Don’t miss the news you need to know — add VancouverSun.com and TheProvince.com to your bookmarks and sign up for our newsletters here.
You can also support our journalism by becoming a digital subscriber: For just $14 a month, you can get unlimited access to The Vancouver Sun, The Province, National Post and 13 other Canadian news sites. Support us by subscribing today: The Vancouver Sun | The Province.