If you haven't heard, NFL ratings are down a tremendous amount this season, while college football ratings have remained relatively unchanged.
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There have been multiple reasons espoused on why this may be happening, but it looks like we might have found a stat that really sheds light on the situation.
Based on that tweet, it looks like ratings for local games have stayed the same for FOX, and are only down slightly for CBS. However, all of the national, late-night primetime games — Thursday Night, Sunday Night, and Monday Night Football — have all been significantly impacted.
While college football is mostly able to flex their best games into primetime, the NFL doesn't have that luxury due to their own scheduling restrictions. The result has been multiple Monday Night Football games this season with low interest due to teams falling below their expectations.
You only have to look at this most recent weekend for an example. When scheduling this year, Brock Osweiler returning to Denver probably sounded like an attractive matchup, but when Osweiler turned out to be terrible in Houston... it didn't look so hot.
Monday Night Football averaged over 13 million viewers on ESPN in 2014, but the ratings drop came to a head on October 17 when the Cardinals' 28-3 win over the Jets only did 8.3 million on average.
The NFL might get some helps with Cowboys and Eagles on Sunday Night Football this week, but it might not be enough to offset Jags-Titans on Thursday and a question Vikings-Bears game on Monday night.
