NFL may actually be done. A lot of people leave and discover there is life after football.
I think a lot of that happened during the baseball strike. People realized they could live without MLB and didn’t come back.
Several weeks ago, Limbaugh spoke about this. He has some minor experience in this, as an announcer for the Royals decades ago, and he recalled that one day he was required to go to a training session about fan loyalty. The trainer essentially said the fan/team relationship was unconditional, and the team never made demands or emotionally hurt the fan - much like a relationship with a pet.
Now that the NFL has broken that paradigm, fans might leave in droves.
No kidding. I remember one time in about the mid-90s being at a conference in Detroit and a bunch of us went out for dinner one night. We didn't know each other previously and talk shifted around to a lot of subjects including sports. I remember someone asking me about baseball and I said, no... I used to be an avid fan but had given it up. One of the fellows said he was curious as to why... I thought about it and it was the baseball strike... never watched it again after the strike. Got busy doing other things and they turned out to be far more interesting. I can see that this is the same thing only far worse. My football consumption was already trending closer to zero but now I'll guarantee it will be zero.