The NFL has had two weeks of terrible news about players behaving badly and the league failing to take sufficient action. But Americans still love football.
A new NBC News/Marist poll finds that while most Americans disapprove of the way the NFL has handled domestic violence cases, the vast majority of fans haven’t turned away from the league: 86 percent of fans say domestic violence news hasn’t changed the amount of professional football they watch, compared will 11 percent who are now less likely to watch and 3 percent who are more likely to watch.
The poll shows that 53 percent of Americans disapprove of the way the NFL has handled recent domestic violence cases. Football fans are slightly more likely to disapprove than non-fans, with 57 percent of football fans disapproving of the NFL’s handling of the matter. Men (55 percent) are also slightly more likely than women (50 percent) to disapprove of the NFL’s handling of the recent cases.
There’s also good news in the poll for NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, as just 29 percent of Americans think he should be forced out of his job. The owners have been steadfast in their support of Goodell, and that’s unlikely to change unless the paying customers demand it. It appears that the customers love football enough that they’ll tolerate a lot of malfeasance from the league and its players.