(SP) – According to sources within the Nielsen ratings organization, the NFL tied the record for the lowest ratings in its history Wednesday night, posting a 0.0 on both broadcast and cable networks.
The rock bottom ratings come just three days after players across league knelt during the national anthem in defiance of President Trump calling players who kneel and exercise their right to free speech “sons of bitches.” The number is also some 12 million below the audience the NFL pulled for games just last Sunday.
Upon hearing the report of the 0.0 Wednesday night number, the President tweeted this afternoon: “SUCCESS. ZERO People watched NFL games last night. YOU kneel, WE won’t watch.”
The NFL tried to discredit the report, insisting that there “were no NFL games played on Wednesday, so it was not possible for us to get ratings” through a spokesman. “This is a non-story.”
But sports media analyst Jeff Lenore says the fact that the NFL wasn’t on TV is not important.
“The perception in the public is that the ratings are dropping,” he said. “So when you hear that they got a 0.0 rating, that just feeds the narrative. A 0.0 is a truly terrible number. We don’t see that in sports outside of all of FS1’s programming.”
The low numbers are already fodder in right wing media, with Fox News’ Sean Hannity leading his show with it tonight: “We open with new evidence the NFL is dying. A 0.0 ratings. That’s zero, the same amount of help that Hillary Clinton provided to our brave patriots in Benghazi.”
