Why does anyone ever doubt the NFL?
Notwithstanding a handful of tech juggernauts, it’s hard to think of a business that has been more successful, more singularly dominant, than the National Football League over the past 30+ years. No amount of head injuries, anthem-kneeling, rule changes, abhorrent officiating, or tiresome team dynasties have done anything to slow Roger Goodell’s freight train. The NFL can seemingly do no wrong.
Even the backlash over Kendrick Lamar’s halftime performance proves the point. At a time when our President is systematically sucking every atom of oxygen out of the media room, a 20-minute rap performance somehow breathed for two solid days. It’s almost as if firing up millions of (mostly white) Gen Xers and Baby Boomers was deliberate. Let them rant. They’re going to keep watching football no matter what. They’ve proven it.
Meanwhile, younger multicultural audiences who’ve been glued to the Kendrick-Drake diss saga—and whose lifelong NFL fandom still requires nurturing—had an extra reason to tune in. It was strategic, targeted, and bold marketing at its best.
Adding to the league’s many strokes of brilliance have been more than a few strokes of luck. The explosion of fantasy sports and legalized gambling – both a cause and effect of the NFL’s wild popularity – has been a godsend for Goodell & Co. Taylor Swift serendipitously deciding to date a lumbering tight end from a small-market flyover team was far more charming than if she’d linked up with a golden boy quarterback in Los Angeles or Miami. Younger female audiences flocked to catch glimpses of Taylor in the luxury box, while the old heads had yet another thing to enjoy complaining about. You can’t buy attention like that.
So, last Sunday’s game recorded the largest audience (~134M people) in Super Bowl history – surpassing the Apollo 11 moon landing as the most-watched U.S. TV spectacle of all time. Honorary mention to the moon landing, though, considering the U.S. population in 1969 was barely 60% of what it is today. Nonetheless, with infinitely more entertainment options in our hands today, one annual sporting event racking up eyeballs like that is stunning.
And I’ll bet the over on the estimated audience numbers. This is the first year Nielsen tried a new method for counting out-of-home (bars and the like) Super Bowl viewers. Measurement of streaming viewership is still crude, especially when it comes to how many people in a home are watching. You’ll see some of that in our data below.
Make no mistake. The NFL is king.
And nothing else is even close.
Here’s what we’re seeing:
Consumer confidence took a beating worse than the Kansas City Chiefs. Our Economic Sentiment Index fell off a cliff in its latest reading, representing what I believe might be the biggest two-week decline we’ve seen since launching it in 2013. The short-lived buoyancy after the election has quickly shifted as Americans feel the sting of continued inflation, a tightening job market, and the uncertainty of tariffs and government job losses. The gazillion-dollar question is whether consumers will continue their years-long resiliency in spending or whether this is a tipping point. If they don’t, expect to start hearing whispers of the R-word.
Plus, everyone expects grocery prices to keep rising. For our 3 Things to Know this week, we looked at Americans’ outlook for their grocery bills over the next six months, and let’s just say it’s grim. By over 5-to-1, U.S. adults are more likely to say prices will rise versus fall. Even Republicans are markedly pessimistic. What a difference 3 months makes. We also examined how consumers are waiting for retailer sales events to stock up on essentials and, unrelated, how the flurry of big trades at the deadline didn’t move the needle in fan interest for the NBA.
The state of politics in the workplace is changing as fast as everything else. Just like the Super Bowl (kind of), the webinar with our partners at idealis last Friday shattered attendance records, clearly hitting a nerve with human resources execs. The discussion (and data) centered on how workers’ attitudes toward CEO trust, political discourse in the office, overall job satisfaction, and lots of other things shifted in the wake of the November election. Naturally, the partisan makeup of an employee base matters immensely, as Republicans are much more positive about work right now. What else hasn’t changed? Workplaces that build a culture of trust and collaboration can weather – and even benefit from – the most political discourse among their teams.
Despite the federal government and a large chunk of the private sector taking a machete to DEI initiatives, public opinion on equality issues isn’t as clear. As we found in this study, a plurality of Americans support DEI programs – although it’s close (41% support vs 37% oppose). For sure, consumers will vote with their wallets based on where they stand on the issue. General concern over racial and gender equality peaked in mid-2020 before falling steeply over the subsequent nine months and has remained steady for the past four years. What hasn’t slowed, however, is our collective concern over income inequality – an issue that isn’t likely to improve anytime soon.
Measuring the Super Bowl audience is hard. Echoing today’s prologue, we took our own look at Super Bowl viewership trends and found some remarkable figures. For starters, this is the first year where the majority of viewers did NOT watch the game on a home cable or satellite TV. Over one-third used a free or paid streaming service, and 8% used a digital antenna. Of most important note, Super Bowl viewing is a group affair. 28% of game-watchers were in the company of 4 or more people. Seven percent were with a party of ten or more. Knowing exactly how many people tuned in last Sunday is damn near impossible. But I’m fairly certain we’re still undercounting it.
More awesomeness from the InsightStore:
- An early look at the upcoming tax season and consumers’ expectations;
- People didn’t love the Super Bowl ads this year, especially the AI-related ones.
The most popular questions this week:
Do you feel a spiritual connection to the natural world?
How would you rate your current fitness routine?
What’s your personal preference when it comes to airplane seats?
Answer Key: Not particularly; Pretty good at the moment; Straight vodka on the rocks with blue cheese stuffed olives for me; Right side aisle; In small doses.
Hoping you’re well.
JD
