'Sunday Night Football' ratings were down following Trump's controversial NFL comments, and player protests
The "Sunday Night Football" match-up between the Oakland Raiders and Washington Redskins was down around 12.9% compared to last year's game in the same week, according to Reuters.
For contrast, CBS's Sunday games all saw slight upticks in viewership compared to last year.
The "Sunday Night Football" ratings drop comes in the wake of Trump's comments, starting at an Alabama rally on Friday, where he sparked controversy and condemnation by saying that players who knelt in protest of the national anthem should be "fired."
Numerous NFL team owners spoke out against Trump's comments over the weekend. Meanwhile, more than 200 players knelt in protest during week three games, following in the path of a movement started by the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who protested police brutality and racial injustice against African Americans.
In turn, Trump tweeted about the NFL's ratings woes amid his clash with the league, writing, "Standing with locked arms is good, kneeling is not acceptable. Bad ratings!"
The NFL has been suffering from repeated year-over-year declines in ratings. In the first week of this season, the league saw a 12% decline in ratings, which was followed by a 15% drop in week two, year-over-year, according to Nielsen.
NFL ratings were down an average of 8% over the course of last season. The loudest explanation the league gave for last year's drop was "unprecedented interest in the presidential election." While ratings did improve slightly after the election, this explanation is only one in a series of excuses that experts have repeatedly given for the league's bad ratings.
Last week, a Jefferies analyst speculated that a 10% drop in ratings over the course of the 2o17 season would go on to cut $200 million in earnings from the networks broadcasting NFL games this year.