Football’s fall from grace this year has opened the door to baseball, hockey and basketball moving in for audience.
A new survey shows that the NFL’s woes have reached such a point that baseball now has a higher positive consumer perception — and MLB’s season opener isn’t for another 67 days.
YouGov also showed that the NHL and NBA are challenging the positive perception of football, a surprise because those audiences are smaller.
The poll and branding analysis suggested that with the Super Bowl a week away, the NFL’s perception should be higher.
“While the playoffs seem to have brought perception back to about the same mark as last year, the National Hockey League (NHL), Major League Baseball (MLB) and the National Basketball Association (NBA) are trending at similar levels. Unlike the NFL, the NHL and NBA are in the midst of their regular seasons, while baseball is in its off-season and still a few weeks away from spring training,” it said.
And, it added, the drop in positive perception mirrors the drop in TV ratings.
“While nothing dramatically shook up this NFL season like the Ray Rice spousal abuse crises or Deflategate, the perception slump mirrors Nielsen ratings sliding 15 percent from the year before. Theories for the plunge range from a contentious election to oversaturation,” said YouGov.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected]
