The NFL Network’s “Around the League” series takes a look at the most important topics in sports and offers some insight into the game’s future.
This week, the network’s Peter King sat down with ESPN’s Adam Schefter and asked him about the state of the NFL and the state the league is in.
King: So let’s start with this season.
The ratings are up.
How much does that mean to you?
Schefter: Well, I think that’s a question that’s going to take a little while to answer.
And it certainly has an effect on our business, because we can’t do the things that we want to do with the ratings that we’re able to do.
But, I’m very happy that we’ve seen the ratings continue to increase.
King: How much of a factor was the increase in ratings and how much of an effect did the Super Bowl and the playoff games have?
Schefter: The Super Bowl was a huge factor.
I think in the second half of the season, the Super-Bowl was the biggest thing for us.
I don’t know if you can pinpoint exactly where the Superbowl ratings started to fall off, but I think it was in the early part of the year.
I mean, I mean we have to go back to January.
We had a lot of games in January and February that were kind of on the periphery of what we had planned for the rest of the campaign.
But we also had a number of games where we didn’t get all of the coverage that we wanted to.
So I think January and the rest were a little bit of a wakeup call.
We were trying to do a lot more of the same stuff.
King, who is a longtime NFL analyst and contributor to “Outside the Lines,” has covered the NFL since 1999.
He is the host of “Inside the NFL” and the “Inside Sports” show on ESPN.com.
