After going through the vast wasteland of no sports for a few months earlier this year, you’d think that fans of the Washington Football Team would be enthralled to be able to turn on the TV this past month and watch their favorite team play.
On top of that, with thousands of fans now unable to attend games in person due to the coronavirus pandemic, you’d think that even more people are forced to sit in front of their box sets and catch the game via telecast.
Apparently that hasn’t been the case, as Washington’s ratings on TV have been down both of the past two weeks, compared to a year ago.
Week 1 2019 @ Eagles: 19.0
Week 1 2020 vs Eagles: 14.3
Week 2 2019 vs Cowboys: 18.3
Week 2 2020 @ Cardinals: 16.5
Stats via The Sports Business Journal
How does that make sense? Washington has a young and budding star in Terry McLaurin, plus one of the best defensive lines in the NFL and a No. 2 overall pick in the most recent draft. On top of that, the first two games of the year came against entertaining opponents, with Week 1 against the division rival Philadelphia Eagles, and Week 2 against the high-flying Arizona Cardinals. Mix all of those factors with the reasons we laid out at the top of the article, and you’d expect ratings to be up, right?
One thing you could blame it on is the myriad of different options available to the viewer at the moment. In Week 1, Washington and the rest of the NFL early slate were up against a Clippers and Nuggets NBA Playoff game, and last week saw the entire NFL Sunday matched up against the U.S. Open.
Whatever the reason, we can hope that Washington starts to look a bit better on the field, and in turn, more fans will catch onto the wave and tune in on the dials.
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