Bears flounder on the field and in the ratings
Bears sink in ratings locally despite gains for football – pro and collegiate elsewhere
Last year, Chicago football fans had hope the Bears would drastically improve as they finished 3-14 and earning the first draft pick, whom they traded to the Carolina Panthers to get even more draft picks and acquiring a few standout veterans such as DJ Moore and Chase Claypool.
In the words of Dr. Phil, “How’s that working out for you?”
Since Dr. Phil doesn’t have a show anymore, maybe he can give the Bears a pep talk and sit management down and lecture them on a harsh reality- your team held together with glue and chewing gum ain’t going anywhere in the standings – or in the ratings
The Bears’ uninspiring 0-3 start is now having a major impact in the local ratings – bad news for local TV stations already struggling with declining audiences and revenue as viewers shift to streaming. In other words, Justin Fields’ play isn’t helping the Bears OR the the local media industry.
According to Nielsen, the Chicago Bears-Kansas City Chiefs game where the visiting team got pummeled 41-10 by the defending Super Bowl champs Sunday drew a 19.3 household live-plus-same day rating:
#DaBears RATINGS INFO:
— Jeff Agrest (@JeffAgrest) September 26, 2023
Game at Chiefs on Fox 32 in Chicago market drew a 19.3 HH rating (over 699,000 HHs). It peaked at 21.5 (about 779,000) in the 4:15 pm quarter hour.
W2 at TB-20.0
W1 vs GB-23.3
That number was down 4 percent from the week’s previous game and down 17 percent from the Packers game two weeks ago. Local viewers clearly bailed from the broadcast as it was clearly over by halftime when the Chiefs led 34-0. Of course, the only reason to stick around was Taylor Swift’s appearance at the game as a guest of Travis Kelce in a suite as the Fox broadcast, and of course it made sense to show her cheering in the box as opposed to what was going on in a nothingburger of a game.
Despite the blowout, Fox said the late window (also including the Arizona Cardinals’ shocking upset over the Dallas Cowboys, which most of the country was switched to after halftime) drew 24.3 million viewers but was down eight percent from last year’s comparable week three game as most of the country got Packers-Buccaneers, featuring the quarterback matchup between Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers. Still, the window finished first among all female demos – due to you-know-who. CBS also reported good ratings news for its telecast Sunday, earning its most-watched singleheader in a dozen years with 17.5 million viewers and scored its best September viewership in 13 years.
Compared to the Bears, things look much better for college football, as ratings for games are up from last year – no doubt in part to Deion Sanders’ arrival as head coach of Colorado. Their most recent game – a blowout loss to Oregon – drew 10 million viewers on ABC. But it was the primetime Ohio State-Notre Dame game for NBC who was the big winner, drawing the largest audience for a game for the network in three decades, drawing about 10.6 million (including streaming, from Adobe Analytics.) and a 7 household rating and 24 share in Chicago. Ohio State pulled off a last minute touchdown as time expires to pull off the victory.
As for the Bears, the team may be looking at a winless season though they have a shot at a winning game at home against the Denver Broncos Sunday, a team also 0-3 and just gave up 70 points to the Miami Dolphins. The Bears have not won in nearly a year, losing thirteen straight as this “rebuild” is going nowhere – it’s like you’re in the process of rebuilding your house after a fire and it somehow burns down again. You knew this wasn’t going to work when the team was more interested in filming Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles arriving at Halas Hall to do work than…you know, actually doing the work?
The Bears’ disastrous start takes place at a time when Chicago sports is repeating the horrors of last year, including a White Sox season going off the rails, topping it off with a shooting at Guaranteed Rate Field and a diss from Sports Business Journal readers, whose respondents ranked Chicago a low ninth behind Dallas and Minneapolis in best places to do sports business. In addition to a national reputation for crime and violence, Chicago now has the worst team in two of the four major sports.
Don’t be surprised if you see a celebrity in a Soldier Field suite Sunday – and it turns out to be Dr. Phil. Because while Taylor Swift is now the world’s biggest Chiefs fan, an out-of-work TV psychologist is a perfect fit for Bears fandom.
[Editor’s Note: North Carolina’s NFL team was incorrectly identified in an earlier draft. They play in Charlotte but are called the Carolina Panthers. T Dog Media apologies for the error.]