As Colin Kaepernick continues to drop to a knee, so do the NFL’s ratings.
A new survey of Americans who identify themselves as football fans found that a majority of them have been watching fewer pro games this year because they are sick of seeing the San Francisco 49ers quarterback and other athletes refusing to stand for the national anthem.
A whopping 40 percent of the 1,136 people questioned in the Yahoo/YouGov poll said they were turned off by the protests, while another 31 percent cited a “lack of opportunity” to watch the NFL.
In total, 29 percent of the fans said they were tuning in less this year — which some believe is due to the presidential election.
But just 17 percent of those surveyed said that was actually the reason they weren’t watching.
As for the people who are up in arms over Kaepernick’s refusal to stand, more than half of the respondents were age 55 and over, while only 13 percent were age 18 to 34.
And it’s not just football fans who are peeved.
In similar polls involving the other three major professional sports, 17 percent of NBA fans said they would watch fewer games if they involved similar protests, 28 percent of baseball fans said they too would stop watching, and 31 percent of hockey fans said they would as well.
Kaepernick has been taking a knee during the national anthem since the NFL preseason and a slew of players have joined him.
At the same time, TV ratings have been dropping — with viewership down 11 percent for the first six weeks of the season when compared to last year’s numbers.
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell insisted earlier this week that the drop had nothing to do with Kaepernick’s on-the-field demonstrations.
“We don’t think that’s a factor,” he said Tuesday during a set of NFL owners meetings. “I think when you look at ratings, you have to go a little deeper than that … There’s viewers, but also how long they’re engaging for. A lot of times, people will leave a game for whatever reason, whether they’re going to go to other programming, or whether the game is less competitive.”