The Marist Poll, with collaboration from the Sports Communications department, held a study about the noticeable and shocking decline in viewership in live sporting broadcasts.
The four major American sports officially began play on July 23rd when the New York Yankees traveled to Washington D.C. to face the defending champions, the Washington Nationals. This ended a four month pause of all the sports, and about a week after, the National Basketball Association and the National Hockey League joined Major League Baseball and resumed play as well.
Since play began, it was a safe assumption that ratings would be through the roof, I mean after all, what else is there to do during a pandemic? To everyone’s surprise, reports kept feeding information about the drastic drop in viewership. Last week, the Marist Poll published their findings after conducting their own research on the subject, and confirmed what didn’t seem possible, there is a huge decline in ratings.
Link to the Marist Poll and its study.
A surprising fact for sure as it seemed that the only thing that could possibly bring a divided nation to unity was the power of sports. When sports resumed, it felt like March Madness, but with all professional sports leagues. There were games on every moment of every day starting that last glorious week of July.
I fully expected the numbers of viewership and fandom to be through the roof, and when I kept hearing those numbers were low, I didn’t believe it. The poll done does confirm what I didn’t think possible and I am trying to figure out how the viewership didn’t rise.
Game one of the NBA Finals between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Miami Heat recorded 7.41 million viewers, this was the lowest rated finals game on record in NBA history, this dates back to 1988.
It didn’t seem possible that the numbers would decline this much, and that is why this is so shocking to me. The reasons on how the changes happened interest me and the poll, along with Jane McManus and Dr. Zachary Arth, bring up the main theories as to why the decline is happening.
When sports first began I thought to myself there was no way people could not watch. The anticipation of them coming back after a long absence, not much to do in the world at the moment, and the unity and pride they could bring. These were the reasons I believed sports viewership would increase, not decline.
After re-thinking my original analysis, I realized that the decline in viewership should not be a shock. Between the presidential election, people worrying more about a pandemic, and with all the issues in our country, it was quite obvious this fall would come.
Simply, since March, there are bigger things and concerns in life than just sports. Fighting for equality, trying to solve a world wide pandemic, and figuring out who should be in the oval office come November are at the top of that list.
The decline in viewership should actually not come as a shock, and if changes don’t come to our country soon, we should expect the numbers to continuously drop.
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