Have We Reached Peak NFL?

How will the owners and managers of the multi-billion-dollar NFL empire handle the league’s decline phase?

OK, I get it: pro football is so popular because it’s one of the last refuges of modern life that hasn’t been ruined by politics. Oops, scratch that. But we shouldn’t pin the decline of pro football’s popularity (as measured by viewership) solely on player protests, as the decline predates the recent politicization.

As this chart shows, viewership has been sliding for years across the en...