I admit to not being a huge NFL fan - more into Big 10 college football than professional - but nevertheless, after being pretty starved of any American football action, I tuned in this past Sunday for some of the first weekend action of this new NFL season. While the team I casually root for lost, it was nevertheless a good feeling to see the players out there, and I didn't even mind being bombarded with ads for sports betting apps, trucks, wireless services, or Subway sandwiches. The headlines coming out of the Thursday night opener to the season, apart from the fairly lopsided game outcome, tended to focus on the drop in viewership relative to 2019, which at first might seem a concerning figure for broadcasters CBS (VIAC), Fox (FOX), NBC (CMCSA) and ESPN (DIS). While those initial figures from the full weekend merit a look, a truly sustained 16 game regular season, playoffs and Super Bowl, uninterrupted by COVID-19, seems to present a tantalizing opportunity for broadcasters to start regaining lost ground from the black hole of live sports over the last 6 months. I continue to be bullish especially on ViacomCBS, and the return of the NFL is just one of the reasons why.

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