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In 2016 pundits tried to explain the National Football League’s declining television ratings by stating that the presidential election served as a distraction to viewers. Ratings went up after the election, which seemed to justify this view. But now it’s 2017, and through the first three weeks of the season the NFL’s ratings are down from last year, which itself represented a decline. They can no longer blame the presidential election.
Some have blamed black players such as Michael Bennett and Colin Kaepernick for protesting during the national anthem. Only polls will tell if their actions are causing fans to turn away.
A more plausible explanation in my opinion for the NFL’s low ratings in my opinion is the changing demographics of America. Most NFL fans are white — 72% to be exact. Of these, many follow the sport out of love of the game but some do so out of a sort of civic spirit in support of their city. Nonwhite population growth in cities having NFL teams has caused many white NFL fans to leave said cities. Once these whites relocate to new cities, they are too old and tired to concern themselves with new city’s team, if there is one. Ratings trends show that in 2016 viewership fell with white Americans more than any other group, particularly white males aged 18 to 34, which are perhaps those most likely to engage in white flight.
If white flight is causing ratings to decline, we would expect to see it most pronounced in the state with the most white flight. This is exactly what we see in California. It’s tough to compare racial estimates between official census years, but a good clue as to whether whites are leaving California is migration flow between states. According to the US Census bureau, California is second only to New York in having the fewest people migrate there from other states in the previous year. In other words, few Americans are moving to California, but many are leaving her for other states. The top states to which they’re going as compared with those states’ overall population are for the most part whiter than California. Consider that in 2015 the top per-capita recipients of California out-migration were Nevada, Idaho, Oregon, Arizona, Hawaii, Washington, the District of Columbia, and Utah. Granted, Hawaii and DC aren’t very white, but one is rich in tropical environments and the other in lucrative federal jobs. The remaining states are some of the whitest in the nation, suggesting that California is shedding many of her white residents.
Meanwhile, the US Census Bureau estimates that 643,886 people left California in 2015 for other states while 514,477 moved there, a net interstate migration loss of 129,409. Yet the overall population grew by 334,811. This means well over 400,000 new people entered the state from births, which were about 75% nonwhite and foreign immigration which was mostly nonwhite.
The Bay Area is becoming increasingly nonwhite. There were a strikingly high number of empty seats in the San Francisco 49ers first game in 2017. Across the bay in Oakland, the Raiders seem to be bearish enough about their future in California to commence with plans to relocate to Las Vegas by 2020, a city which has almost twice as many non-Hispanic whites per capita.
Granted, another team, the Rams, moved to Los Angeles this year, but they left the shrinking city of St. Louis which has lost over 50,000 inhabitants since the team moved there in 1995. If anything, the move to LA has made things worse. Just like at the 49ers’ stadium, many seats were empty in the team’s home games.
The Chargers also moved to LA this year but from San Diego, which has recently become a “hotbed” of soccer. In my opinion, this is because of its growing Mexican population.
If the Chargers thought they’d find a more football-friendly crowd by moving to LA, they were wrong. The LA Galaxy, a professional soccer team, had more attendees than the Chargers’ first exhibition game this season. The LA Chargers’ dismal attendance has continued into the regular season, where its stadium was filled with empty seats and fans of the opposing team, the Chiefs, which come from Kansas City, a city with more than double the proportion of white inhabitants of LA.
The changing demographics of California have put its pro-football teams in jeopardy because the races do not watch football at equal rates. On a per-capita basis, in the age group 18-49, Hispanics are 25% less likely to watch NFL games on television and Asians are 20% less likely. Meanwhile, whites are 17% more likely and blacks are 30% more likely.[1]
Someone may object that Texas has a lot of Hispanics but still has two of the most lucrative NFL teams, the Cowboys and Texans, but let’s compare Texas’s demographics with those of California. Of whites, blacks, Hispanics, and Asians, California has 38%, 5%, 39%, and 15%, respectively; while
Texas has 43%, 12%, 38%, and 5%. Thus, Texas has 13% more whites, 140% more blacks, 3% fewer Hispanics and 66% fewer Asians than California. If we assume racial inclinations to be uniform between the two states, California is at a 7% handicap on per-capita likelihood of its inhabitants liking the NFL, which is mostly because of having more Asians and Hispanics and fewer blacks and whites. This is compounded even further when we consider that Texas probably has a higher proportion of long-term resident Hispanics who have greater affinities for the white majority’s culture, including that of football.
Despite California being at least 7% less likely to have NFL fans than Texas it has more NFL teams per capita in California. California has 39.5-million inhabitants per four teams, whiles Texas has 27.9 inhabitants per two teams. Thus, Texas has one NFL team per 14-million inhabitants and California one team per 10-million inhabitants. Maybe that’s what explains all those empty seats in California stadiums. What’s more, the Cowboys are known as “America’s Team” and thus more likely to draw fans from out of state, so we would expect Texas teams to do better still. The Raiders, which are in Oakland for the time being, have not had such lackluster ticket sales as the three other California teams, but this may be because Oakland has far fewer Hispanics and Asians per capita than the other cities.
In a funny way, the NFL is much like the Republican Party. They seem oblivious to the fact that their main audience is whites. NFL teams would do well to move out of California along with the white population rather than move into it.
Another reason the NFL is declining, which isn’t really region-specific, is that baby boomers are dying off and the new generation Z is the most heavily nonwhite demographic yet. Even among ages 18 to 34, there are fewer whites per capita than baby boomers and thus this age group is likely to generate fewer football fans, assuming football viewership is an inherently white thing.
Thus far we’ve examined why the NFL is failing more among whites, but we have yet to examine why it is doing so among all races. My best guess is oversaturation with the product has hit fans. Fantasy football, an addiction for many, rewards individuals who follow the league’s latest updates of which players have sat out games due to injury, which players are starting, and which ones will replace injured players or those who are underperforming. Diligence in keeping up with news really is the key factor, along with luck and a good draft strategy. Unless one is willing to spend at least twenty hours each week following headlines he probably won’t win his league. One can imagine the kind of burnout this would cause after a few years.
In general, with the development of the Internet the mystique of the game has faded. Players’ tweets are always on display. Multitudes of photographs of them can be found with Google Images searches. Sports commentators and announcers rehash the minutest details of their lives in the same spirit as those medieval monks who debated the number of angels who can stand on the head of a pin. The perception of NFL players as being mythical and unreachable figures has undoubtedly waned because access to their daily actions is a click away. In short, the part fans previously left up to imagination has been removed from the sport.
A final reason for the sport’s decline is probably the increasing relevance of race in an increasingly diverse America. The most racially-open (and naive) whites tend to be those who live in all-white communities, but there are fewer and fewer of those. Increasingly more whites are realizing that being around others like them is a good idea, and they no longer view black athletes with quite the same innocent, race-blind eyes.
Please check Counter-Currents again soon because I will publish an essay, “Why the NFL Should Be in Decline,” shortly.
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[1] For ages 18-49, whites are 72% of NFL TV viewers and 61% of the US population, thus 72/61 = 17% more likely to watch NFL games. Blacks are 17% of NFL TV viewers and 13.3% of the US population, thus 17.3/13.3 = 30% more likely. Hispanics are 12.7% of NFL TV viewers and 17% of the US population, thus 12.7/17 = 25% less likely. Asians are 4.4% of NFL TV viewers and 5.6% of the US population, thus 4.4/5.6 = 20% less likely.
28 Comments
When I got out of college in the early 80s everyone wanted to live in California. Now I dont think young people think so anymore. If you are just starting your professional career, would you rather put down $300k for a home or a million and a half, for little difference between the cities?
The real fan base for professional sports is in Trumps America. Die hard fans live in small and rural towns within a few hundred miles of the respective sports team city. Rural fans will eventually give up their team pride when surly black athletes red pill them with the athletes’ blatant disdain for their white rural fans.
Interesting article, good analysis. Also, a contributing factor I suspect that the mosaic generation may simply be less in to football. Good, I agree, but what has replaced football?
Pornography!
Rugby (safer than football), soccer, Baseball (number 1 sport again), Lacrosse , etc…
Changing demographics is probably just a small part of the reason. Less discretionary budget and politicizing of sports is main driver for decline. Which honestly isnt that big (yet).
I watch a little football, and there is one area that you did not touch on. It is the increasing number of black coaches, and black quarterbacks. I think that is a big reason why the ratings are going down. One can tell the difference in the quality of a team’s performance if the the coach, or the quarterback is black—it is more amateurish. The NFL’s never ending push to hire black coaches, and black quarterbacks is driving the white fan base away. Fans sense that the NFL is going the way of the NBA, who wants to watch a bunch of blacks? The Dallas Cowboy’s popularity will start to decline this year, they have a black quarterback, and have not played that well so far. There is no emotional appeal for whites to watch football, like I said who wants to watch a bunch of blacks. The quality of play of all the teams has gone down because of black coaches, and black quarterbacks.
I have a theory along those lines, which I myself only half believe, for the general decay in culture which has progressed apace since the 50s. More specifically, since the integration era. Our educational level has been dumbed down for the blacks. Standards have been lowered to make it appear that they are degree worthy. Our internal filters have been weakened, particularly in verbal dimension, so the quality of movies, music, plays, etc has plummeted. For a specific example, consider how the SAT was changed in the late 90s, making it less g loaded. To whose benefit was that aimed, do u think?
The Jewish drive to lower college standards, and energize the upward mobility of blacks in every field (especially sports) has been discussed, and proved by various white nationalists organizations of the past few decades.
Peter Quint: I’ve thought the same thing.
Since I believe that negroes on average (and QBs and coaches cannot be any different) are lower IQ than Whites. Therefore, the innovation of new offensive/defensive systems will not be as common as before not to mention that the negro QBs will not be able to handle the intellectual part of the position (reading defenses, before/after the ball snap).
The NFL, I believe, will degenerate into more of a running league and that by itself spells boredom for the fans. Dropped passes, interceptions, three running plays and punt are not compelling. But that is where the NFL is headed with more and more negro coaches/QBs.
No doubt they’ll rescind the rules against excessive celebration and let the Blacks do a full victory dance in the end zone. But this isn’t enough: the other day a Black lifted his leg and pretended to be a male dog urinating. And sometime before that, a Black mimicked a sexual act after making a tackle. Will such things continue to be fined? The Minstrel Show is threatened!
Yes – when I watched the NFL in the 1970s and 80s it was half white/half black. Now it is over 70% black. Who wants to watch that?
Compared to the NBA which is close to 75%. It seems like it’s closer to 90% at first glance. I for one would like to see more black kickers in the game. It’s an area of the sport that could definitely use more diversity.
Another thought is that the typical NFL negro is a ghetto hood rat. A section 8 housing, full blooded mandingo, ebonics negro. What White wants to support a league full of that human scum? We don’t want a society filled with those types (which we have anyway), we don’t want to live near them, so why would we want to spend any free time glorifying them?
Perhaps a new earnestness is creeping into the general consciousness that prevents to freely enjoy watching sports with the same carefreeness as before? I think that an atmosphere of doom is more and more palpably pervading everything. A first reaction would be restlessness and subliminal worrying and what used to be relaxing can’t fulfil that role anymore.
Since white people must feel instinctively that they are losing out in this daily change forward into a once, but not anymore promising future, they might be more strongly affected and withdraw in greater numbers from something that might seem now frivolous with the gathering clouds of something dark.
To those who have an understanding of racial effects on culture this will be obvious. However, in many conversations I’ve had, the idea that most traditions and institutions in the United States are implicitly white is contested angrily. In the 1920’s football began to grow in popularity, and like many traditions of that time, its “whiteness” was implied. Then, 1965 immigration and civil rights occurred, and racial demographics began to change. Another liberal lie, by the way. So, the modern black, empowered by the wilting, liberal white has seized this opportunity. Having the genetics to dominate most physical sporting events, they are the majority in these arenas, and now have overtaken an institution that hits near and dear to many working class white people’s hearts. One white pill can be that the “normie”, working class American may start to realize that there is a problem, even if they are not willing to admit to exactly what that problem is.
I’d say a lot of whites woke up to the scam of the league. There are plenty of other crowd/adrenaline based events you can join in with so the worship of blacks dies a little.
Ha ha ha ! Nobody can figure out why NFL ratings are tanking ! Only a sissy white man with no self-respect would watch a bunch of black men play a game. Truth ! Don’t be a sissy ! Stop patronizing institutions that hate white men ! Most of you guys are probably fat and weak. Go to the gym, go to the gun range, read “The Turner Diaries” and wake the f$ck up.
Speaking for myself: I simply don’t care anymore, one way or another. I find it has absolutely zero relevance to anything important in my life. In fact, it’s interesting how lifeless, dull, and repetitive the big three American sports of football, basketball, and baseball really are.
Not to mention wasting time, wasting money, fighting traffic and crowds if you want to go to the stadiums, seeing endless dull commercials on tv, etc.
To paraphrase Francis Parker Yockey, we should be no more interested in ball games played by hulking savages in America than in a struggle between two negro tribes in the Sudan.
I wish that, after some more verbal jabs at the NFL by Trump, he and his attorney general Sessions file Just Dept lawsuit requiring the NFL and NBA to change the racial demographics in order to “look like America” HA! HA! HA! Give the non-Whites a taste of their “affirmative action”.
I know it will be a cold day in hell at this point in time for this to happen, but consider: many Whites have been long losing out in education institutions and then later in the employment market to non-Whites. With some more ingrate behavior by the ghetto black crowd that predominates the NBA and NFL, and coming from Trump, this could possibly come to life.
I marvel at the irony of that paradox too: we must practice fanatical AA in careers such as medicine and police, wherein people die and lose limbs, but for something as critical as professional sports, basically the toy department, we need a strict meritocracy.
Pietas: I myself have been considering for a while the same about AA in sci/med/tech. All of these non-Whites are not going to be the innovators that Whites have been. Not even the orientals who can spend more time practicing to make slightly higher scores on SAT or other placement tests.
America had plenty of Whites (and White males) to be doctors, dentists, scientists, tech workers. America did not need to bring muslims, Pakis, orientals, Africans to do this for us. It is crystal clear that academia and all levels of gov’t are displacing Whites out of these types of careers.
Not only will there be more incompetence among these non-Whites, there will be more apathy toward White patients by these non-White doctors/dentists. I would tell all other Whites to beware accepting as a doctor someone not White. No telling what their attitude toward Whites is.
All these non-Whites in sci/tech working in classified projects for the gov’t are a very real, potential National Security risk. For example, US citizens of Chinese ancestry holding security clearances have been known to be the Chicoms entry into American secrets. They will take the side of “their own people” over the US. They associate the USA with Whites, and they are entirely correct about that, and will sell this country out when it suits them. In addition to less sci/tech innovation due to less Whites, what innovation is effected will be in adversary’s hands not too long afterwards. Israel gets American jews to do such things, and has been doing it for decades.
So, in addition to Whites losing these employment opportunities, America (White people, only Whites are Americans) as a whole is going to be harmed by it. Somewhere, somehow, someday.
Leon: I’ve too wondered about the separatism. I personally don’t see the non-Whites letting any partial Whites and certainly not all Whites separate and then live in a contiguous part of the old USA. First, they will end up illegally invading again. Second, they know they cannot survive without Whites so they (or the smartest, longest range thinking ones among them) will balk at any separatism.
Therefore, I believe there will be a race war. In a future race war it will not be all Whites on one side and all non-Whites on the other. Many, many Whites on the political LEFT will join with the non-Whites. They already join antifa (read: I hate Whites) gatherings to physically attack any Whites who are not LEFTIST. No doubt they (political LEFT Whites) will go as far as to put on a uniform of some kind and shoulder a weapon. Plus, just like in street protests, they will feel oh-so-noble while doing it. The ferocity of it will be truly breathtaking.
A future race will not even be White on the political Right versus non-Whites allied with political LEFT Whites.
It will be political Right Whites who are racially aware/conscious and race loyal (meaning willing to fight to have an all White society) versus non-Whites allied with political LEFT Whites.
Political Right Whites who are not racially aware/conscious and race loyal will sit it out, on the fence so to speak, and watch how the chips fall. Waiting to see who is the winner.
If the political Right, racially aware/conscious, race loyal Whites even begin to look as if they are losing, the political Right Whites on the fence will come storming down and screeching “Die, raysis, MFer, DIE! Or some such; just watch a local antifa gathering.
If the non-Whites allied with political LEFT Whites look to be losing, those same political Right Whites on the fence will instead wait until the very last moment and then come off the fence professing love and loyalty to their White race. But the look in their eyes will something akin to a person wanting to sucker punch you and waiting for you to turn your back to them a few critical seconds.
Even with a total White society, your troubles are just now getting started. Those Whites who would not help fight a race war will demand, self righteously as a matter of fact, to have the same political power as those Whites who did the fighting. So, an authoritarian gov’t will be needed, to make them obey.
Whites admittedly have their work cut out for them if they dare to separate. Me personally, I don’t advocate ceding any US territory to non-Whites and their race traitor White cucks. I say take over the country and then deposit the non-Whites somewhere else on this planet.
If you want a standard in which to compare the quality of play of the various teams in the NFL, just look at the New England Patriots. Whether you like them or not the Patriots have one of the greatest coach, and quarterback combinations in NFL history. Even if Brady is injured coach Bilichick still manages to win with what he’s got to work with. Coach Bilichick runs his team like a military unit, and you get a different feeling watching the Patriots going to work compared to the the other football teams. The Patriots are the last remnant of old white american football.
Yes, the high intellectual capacities, and military regimentation brought by coaches such as Bill Bilicheck, Bill Walsh, and Vince Lombardi to the game will become increasingly a thing of the past. The brilliant improvisations, leadership, field generalship of the likes of Joe Montana, John Elway, Johnny Unitas, Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, and Payton Manning will also become increasingly a thing of the past. The future of the NFL will be sub-standard leadership, and amateurish play on the field, and thuggish behavior off the field.
It’s quite incredible that despite the scandals that have engulfed football for so long, there has been such a willingness by the powers that be to cover it up.
I’m sure football was seen by the establishment as something that kept a fractious and disillusioned populace, not only dumbed down, but also less likely to discover the reasons behind their decline.
It appears the football illusion is collapsing, and not before time.
They are unwilling to put a predictable product on the field. No continuity of refereeing game to game. If you went to different franchises and the product did not meet expectations you would stop going back. Adventure in football rule enforcement ruined the game and the present is just an arrogant continuation of the same.
Another thing about college and pro football I have noticed has also happened to college/pro basketball. The negro has shown up and turned the sport into one aspect of physicality at which the negro can excel and at the same more so than Whites. Not an overall physicality, mind you, but just one aspect. In football it is absolute sprinting speed. In basketball, it seems to be jumping.
In football there is always some negro somewhere who can outsprint any/all Whites. Thus, the game, if flooded with negroes, is turned into a simple contest of who can outrun whom. That, in reality, is what and is all that negroes have brought to football. Yeah, they changed the game as they frequently claim; but not in any good way. Just devolved it down to one single thing; running faster, especially a sprint all the way to the goal line. Yes, speed has always been in the nature of the game. But there were other things just as important; strategy, different blocking schemes, some trickery/crafty plays for special occasions. These were important to Whites who invented the game. And Whites are still just as good as negroes and, hell, many times better than negroes. That’s why negroes don’t care much for them. Negroes stick to what little they are good at; sprinting, and the low impulse control anger/violence after so many plays.
In basketball there is always some negro who can out jump the Whites. So, the negro has turned that sport into a game where jumping is the, far and away, most important ability. Yes, jumping was always required due to the nature of the game but other things were important to the Whites who invented the game; strategy, three point percentage, free throw percentage, passing game. Nowadays, the negroes have turned it into who can take a running start, leap at the free throw line and sail through the air to the basket for a slam dunk. Basically, some sort of showboating that negroes seem to gravitate toward. Whites are good at all aspects of basketball and are frequently seen to have better 3-point and free throw percentages not to mention better passing skills. Negroes pass well, yes, but only when they can draw attention to themselves individually, usually by doing some kind of (again) show boating maneuver.
I’ve also noticed that the USA international basketball teams, almost always totally negro, lose regularly to Italian and Argentine teams that are all/nearly all White.
Food for thought about negroes being better at basketball and athletics in general. They aren’t.