they didn’t stop watching they just stopped paying. bad news for cable TV not so much for the NFL which has contracts through 2022
5 games a week broadcast, 3 on regular TV, 2 on pay platforms NFL network Thursday night and Monday night on ESPN, wouldn’t your theory equate to a 20% drop in viewing not 10%?
You can watch games on YouTube for free, just type in the teams in the search bar, filter for “Live” events and most likely someone is streaming the game. Albeit, they might just be videoing the game on their TV set, but if you just want to occasionally check-in on the game, it does the job.
The world’s a complicated place. There is a lot of noise in any signal.