Will Regular Season Woes Hurt Super Bowl Ratings?

After a season of declining viewership and National Anthem controversy, one may expect the trend to continue in the form of lower ratings for the upcoming Super Bowl. However, as he explained to NBC 4 in New York, Robert Thompson says that there will be no such drop off. Why?

“The Super Bowl is so much more than a football game,” said Thompson, the head of the Bleier Center for Television and Popular Culture within the Newhouse School. “Its audience is comprised of many, many people who don’t even care about football. So, the Super Bowl is able to pad its ratings as one of the biggest secular holidays on the calendar.”