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Few were surprised that President Donald Trump tweets about Nike's new polarizing ad featuring Colin Kaepernick. The only real surprise is that it took him a few days.
But this morning, Trump triggered a tweet that did some digs at Nike and the NFL – although both brands are, at best, uncomfortable allies in this scenario given that Nike has recently signed a eight-year uniform contract with the NFL. a quarterback is currently suing the league for collusion.
The president's tweet makes two statements without quoting specific data: First, the NFL ratings are "WAY DOWN". Secondly, Nike "gets completely killed with anger and boycotts."
So how accurate is the president's summary of how these brands are acting against the kneeling players' protesting police violence against black Americans?
It's not technically bad on both fronts, as NFL ratings have been falling in recent years, and Nike has certainly sparked a considerable amount of anger and boycott threats since its debut in Kaepernick.
But a glance at the data, especially the NFL's game scores and Nike's financial results on the New York Stock Exchange, shows that both are relatively well positioned to overcome the controversy.
What is the bad rating of the NFL?
In 2016 and 2017, the NFL saw its overall audience decline after several years of growth. According to the live and deferred ratings provided to Adweek by Nielsen, these were the average total audiences for regular season games (including NFL):
• 2013: 17.4 million
• 2014: 17.6 million
• 2015: 17.9 million
• 2016: 16.5 million
• 2017: 14.9 million
Or, in a slightly more visual form:
The 7.8% drop in 2016 and the 9.7% drop in 2017 is certainly not good for the NFL, but there is another important factor to consider: the television sector has seen a few years brutal. The cut of the cord and the complete upheaval of the industry have shaken the ratings of the category.
If you average Nielsen's ratings for the four major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, Fox, and NBC) among viewers aged 18 to 49, you can see how much the decline has been evident in recent years.
In other words, the average broadcast score (at least among 18-49 viewers) has dropped 10.5% over the last year, while the total number of NFL viewers has decreased by 9.7%. So, even though the NFL has had a good period from 2013 to 2015, it seems to be now in the slide that affects television as a whole.
It should also be noted that while television programs are struggling for ratings, NFL games are still performing well.
Last season, Sunday Night Football was again the prime time broadcast program with the 18-49 demo, scoring 6.2. The most watched show of the season was Sunday afternoon's US show Game of the Week, broadcast Sunday afternoon, with an average of 22.7 million viewers.
The verdict? The ratings of the NFL are indeed down, but the ratings of the television are down. The protests of the players could be the cause of some slippages, but probably nowhere at the level of the global disruption of the television industry.
What about Nike's finances?
Nike did not respond to Adweek's request to comment on Trump's tweet today, and only time will tell what kind of long-term impact – positive or negative – the brand sees Kaepernick's approval.
That said, Nike's share price undoubtedly took a hit after the debut of Kaepernick's announcement. The stock price fell about 3.9% when the market opened on Tuesday. But since then, the price has been around $ 80, down about 2.7% from the Labor Day weekend, but it has not worsened since the initial drop after beginning of the announcement.
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