Hard Knocks ratings up from 2020, but way down from 2019

Posted by Mike Florio on August 23, 2021, 9:11 PM EDT
Houston Texans v Dallas Cowboys
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America doesn’t care all that much about America’s Team.

Via Austin Karp of Sports Business Journal, HBO is averaging 295,000 viewers through the first two episodes of Hard Knocks in 2021, featuring the Dallas Cowboys.

That’s a 13-percent increase over last year’s joint Rams-Chargers season with no exhibition games. It’s also 59 percent below the 719,000 average from the first two episodes in 2019, centering on the Raiders.

That’s no surprise, because the Raiders’ rating were driven by the Antonio Brown drama. The Cowboys have nothing like that this year.

Via SBJ, streaming numbers weren’t available for the first two episodes of Hard Knocks. Some would say that, if they were good, they’d be available.

It’s fair to wonder whether Hard Knocks has outlived its usefulness. There’s much more access to teams than ever before, and the annual Hard Knocks treatment frankly feels like an exercise in lather, rinse, repeat. Different teams, different names, same vibe.

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11 responses to “Hard Knocks ratings up from 2020, but way down from 2019”

  1. I’m tired of the cowboys and jerrah. There are so many better storylines in the NFL that could have been showcased this year. I’m not surprised.

  2. When Hard Knocks first dropped in 2001 it was both enthralling and informative. In the twenty years since, you borrow from Brooks, the internet went and got itself in a big damn hurry. When an episode airs in 2021, all the information is old, fans of any team can get the inside view themselves, almost in real time, all of which makes Hard Knocks feel so very old.

  3. I stop watching but also think a lot of people dropped HBO after Game of Thrones was done.

  4. I think this is less about the product and more about what people want to spend money on. HBO for intents and purposes is limited and costly. You get more bang for your buck getting Netflix or Hulu. Imagine the ratings and viewership if it was on either one of those platforms?

  5. Ratings are down because true Americans don’t care about the NFL anymore and better things to do on game days

  7. Get woke, go broke. The corporate media if ores the biggest thing affecting people’s mafia consumption. People want escapes from life, not a constant drumbeat of grievances.

  8. When I had HBO (haven’t for some time (used to get it free by haggling with pre-AT&T DirecTV) it was good to watch to get hyped up over the upcoming season. I didn’t care what teams were shown- it was an interesting look into an something that I had no access to. Watching player-to-player interaction was always interesting, with the cut-down process the most fascinating. Now, however, saturation of information is the name of the day, and there are other demands on viewing time and dollars than ponying up both on an HBO Now subscription…..

  9. Ratings are down because true Americans don’t care about the NFL anymore and better things to do on game days
    —–
    But they post on NFL forums mid-week?

  10. Ratings are down because true Americans don’t care about the NFL anymore and better things to do on game days
    —–
    But they post on NFL forums mid-week?

    ____________

    Head scratcher isn’t it? Like all the guys who said they’d forever given up on the NFL because of Kaepernick but somehow managed to be the very first person to post on every single article about him. It’s almost like these folks say one thing but do the exact opposite.

  11. The non-football parts of the show feel staged, always have, always been the worst part. This year it looks like they’re afraid to follow rookies and try out players too closely out of fear that none of them will make the team.

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