As football teams boycott the anthem, stage dumb social justice stunts, and generally shows their contempt for their fans and for their country, their ratings, shockingly, drop. Even during the pandemic, with little in the way of original counterprogramming, people just aren’t watching.

Clearly the NFL needs to resort to desperate measures, like having the players use the American flag as toilet paper on the field while shouting about racism.

The game ended over 12 hours ago and now the final numbers are in from last night’s NFL season opener. The primetime matchup between the victorious Kansas City Chiefs and the Houston Texans snared 19.3 million viewers on NBC.

That’s a fumble of 12.3% from the Green Bay Packers-Chicago Bears opening game of the 2019-2020 season on September 5, 2019…

When data from NBC Sports Digital and NFL Digital platforms are added to Thursday’s NFL battle, the 8:28-11:05 p.m.  ET game had a total audience of 20.3 million. That’s an 11% drop from last year’s TAD, even with the digital numbers up 55% over 2019 to a non-Super Bowl high…

For one thing, as reigning Super Bowl champs, the Kansas City Chiefs pummeled the Houston Texans 34-20, and the ratings were down — a lot. In early numbers, the primetime NBC game scored a 5.2 among adults 18-49 and 16.4 million viewers between 8-11 p.m. ET. Now, those numbers for the 8:25-11:30 p.m. ET game will certainly be adjusted upward later, but right now they mark a 16.1% drop over the spectacle of the September 5, 2019 season opener in the advertiser-rich demographic.

As of now, the viewership results for the game — in front of 17,000 socially distanced fans at KC’s Arrowhead Stadium — is looking like a 10-year low for the NFL and NBC.

It’s always good news when your own fans boo you before you even begin to play…

On a field bordered with the words “End Racism” and fans booing as players from both teams 

Maybe it’s best not to have fans.

The games were played largely without fans attending, avoiding the embarrassment of the public booing heard during Thursday’s Kansas City Chiefs-Houston Texans pre-game.

 There’s the future of woke sports.