TV viewership down 13% NFL Debut

[CKwi88]

The great thing about statistics is pretty much anyone can try and use them to show correlation between just about anything.

I'm sure people butthurt about the "activism" played a role. I'm also sure that competition with the NBA playoffs (among other sports) for viewers, the lack of a preseason, the matchup (Texans are hardly a huge draw), and other things played a role. Viewership has been on the decline for a while. It's just a vocal minority that will complain about anything that they don't like will try to use the decline for their own confirmation bias.