Perhaps an even more telling- even saddening - demonstration of how popular butker's views are. His T-shirt is now the highest selling one in the NFL store.
I think part of that is that sports in general is turning into a clique for reactionary bearded men. Even real sports like football seem to be turning into MMA or NASCAR in terms of the type of fandom it attracts.
It doesn't help that football is horribly boring to watch now because of the penalties and commercial breaks. You'd have to be pretty weird to enjoy watching two hours of commercial breaks and another hour of watching people stand around waiting for the official review of every other play.
I also forgot to mention it's extremely expensive. You'd have to be a total asshole to waste money going to a game in person at this point, and you have to have cable or premium streaming services to watch everything. It's a mess.
This is false lol . The NFL just recorded its 2nd highest average ratings ever last season so it’s just as popular as it ever was . The fact is conservatives, liberals have both attacked the nfl constantly but in reality it has done nothing to dent the NFL’s popularity .
Also it’s false to say you need cable to watch the NFL as at least 90% of NFL games are broadcast on CBS NBC or Fox all of which you only need an antenna to watch .
https://fortune.com/2024/01/10/nfl-ratings-tv-second-highest-ever-football/
The ratings may not be declining, but the types of people watching it have definitely changed. Fewer and fewer young people care about sports and, regardless of what the ratings say, a lot of people who used to watch football regularly have given up on it. Not for political reasons, but because the experience is terrible. Nonstop commercials, nonstop penalties, nonstop official reviews, and it is less accessible than it used to be. "You only need an antenna to watch." Lol.
The NFL is arguably more exciting from a casual perspective than it used to be as there are more pass plays and less run plays than before . Also yes its true that the NFL is extremely accessible to watch as CBS, NBC , FOX are all stations you get over the air and do not need a cable Or streaming subscription for and now they are increasingly adding ABC to the roster too . So the NFL is arguably even more accessible than it used to be not less .
The only time you run into issues is if you’re a fan of an out of market team and the Inmarket team is playing at the same time slot and Channel as the team you are a fan off . Outside of that you pretty much should have zero problem watching football on Sundays.
Lastly your point on demographics isn’t really true either as 64% of the fan base is between the age of 25 and 39 which is a prime market base for a sports league :
https://www.sponsorpulse.com/insights/nfl-fan-demographics-who-are-footballs-biggest-fans