Meaningless Patriots Preseason Games are Setting TV Ratings Records in New England

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There's a common charge that's been leveled at Patriots fans even since Adam Vinatieri kicked the team into America's hearts back at the beginning of 2002. It comes in different forms, but it's the same basic epithet. Fair weather fans. Bandwagon jumpers. Front runners. Basically that we barely knew we had a team in Foxboro until they finally won, and once Tom Brady is gone, we'll lose all interest. 

It's yet another Wall I've been proud to Defend with the terrible swift sword of truth. Such as the fact there hasn't been an unsold seat to a Pats home game since Mr. Kraft kept the team from leaving for St. Louis back in 1994. And within weeks of the announcement, a waiting list formed for season tickets that numbers in the tens of thousands. And at the rate people give up their seats, the last person on the list will have to have the life expectancy of a Galapagos tortoise to ever see one.

But still, image persists. The questions about our loyalty took on new momentum at the start of training camp, when the gates were thrown open to the public for the first time in 500-something days and the stands were maybe 75% of capacity. So guys like Michael Felger started calling it "The Brady Factor" and claim this was evidence that New England's interest had always only been about him and was now swirling the drain. When in reality, "The Brady Factor" turned out to be simpler phenomena called "Wednesday," "Jobs" and "Rainiest July in 100 Years," and by the weekend, they were turning people away. 

All that said, ticket sales and practice attendance is, ultimately, meaningless. This isn't the 1952 Boston Braves moving to Milwaukee because they can't draw flies. Neither sellouts at games or SRO crowds at practices mean jack squat. Even though they have them. It's not asses in the seats, it's asses on the sofa and eyeballs on screens. And those numbers do not lie:

Patriots.com - The Patriots kicked off the 2021 season with a victory on Thursday night, defeating the Washington Football Team 22-13 in the team's first preseason game.

With the excitement of fans being allowed back into Gillette Stadium for the first time since the 2019 season, as well as the debuts of several promising rookies and new faces in New England, the Patriots saw a 37% increase in ratings compared to Week 1 of the 2019 preseason at the Detroit Lions. …

[T]he New England vs. Washington game delivered an 18.7 household rating and a 38 market share. The game held an average of 623,900 viewers, peaking at 8:00 p.m. with 714,000 viewers.

For those of you keeping score, that's the highest rating the Pats have had for a Fauxball game since 2015. Which would be the preseason after they won a Super Bowl for the first time in a decade. 

By the same token, remember when John Henry's newspaper was pushing this narrative that no one cared anymore, even though Brady was still here? 

That is just one of many such articles. And it came out as the Pats were heading to face the Rams in Super Bowl LIII and held a send off rally that drew more people than fit into America's Most Beloved Ballpark [tm]. Then after they won their sixth ring (cha-CHING), 1.2 million people headed into Boston for the Duckboat parade. On a Tuesday. In February. 

But to try and put those TV ratings into perspective, the same Thursday the New England-Washington game was pulling a 18.7, Henry's Red Sox were fighting for their playoff life against the Tampa Bay Rays and had a 2.4. Here's what they were pulling at their peak this year, June 28th, when the Sox were on fire and sweeping the Yankees in a weekend series that seems like forever ago now:

Boston.com - The  5-3 win over the Yankees Friday drew a 7.1 household rating, the network’s highest since the  2020 opener last July 24 against the Orioles during the pandemic-abbreviated season. The Red Sox’ 9-2 win to complete the sweep Sunday afternoon delivered a 6.04 household rating.

Viewership for Red Sox games on NESN this season is up 84 percent over last season’s 60-game household rating.

So their absolute best, when they're playing their absolute best, is a fraction of what the Patriots pull. Even in a post-Brady world. It's science.

The point being, you can hate the Patriots. You can hate their fans. You can tell me you hate my necktie. But you can't claim this fanbase is not still obsessed with this team, GOAT or no GOAT.