Could tonight’s Presidential debate drop SNF to its lowest rating ever?

With tonight’s New York Giants-Green Bay Packers game airing opposite the second Presidential debate in St. Louis, the NFL, the once-800 lb. ratings gorilla, could see another hit for Sunday Night Football on NBC. The NFL has been taking hits this season with lnumbers down 11% across the board. When the dates for the Presidential debates were announced, there was talk that their ratings would be affected by the NFL, but with heightened interest in the election, it appears that the opposite is occurring, that the debates are affecting the numbers for the NFL.

The first Presidential debate which was on opposite New Orleans-Atlanta last month resulted in a record low for ESPN’s Monday Night Football. Going into this particular debate with plenty of coverage on Donald Trump’s lewd 2005 comments to former Access Hollywood host Billy Bush, SNF may see its lowest ratings on NBC since 2007 when the series averaged a 10.0 rating. This season has seen SNF off by 13%. Last week’s Kansas City-Pittsburgh game was the lowest-rated Week 4 game (10.3) since 2008 when Philadelphia-New York Giants received a 9.4 rating.

The NFL itself has reasoned that the ratings decrease this season is mostly due to the Presidential election. With the second debate on at 9 p.m. ET on several networks including ABC, CBS, CNN, Fox, Fox News, MSNBC along with heavy competition on cable networks not carrying the debate, there’s certainly plenty of factors pointing to a low rating for SNF again even with two of the NFL’s signature teams playing.

There certainly will be fans watching tonight’s game in both New York and Wisconsin, however, they won’t be enough to offset those who will be viewing the debate. The first debate on Long Island saw a record live TV audience of 84 million viewers and tonight’s could match or even surpass that. With the controversy surrounding Trump, that could draw even more people to watch how he’ll approach and react to the Access Hollywood tape that was leaked by an NBC staffer to the Washington Post.

With so much buzz going into tonight’s debate, it will be a surprise if Sunday Night Football can actually make a dent in the debate ratings or if will continue its downward trend in 2016. One thing is definite, there will be plenty of attention paid to Washington University in St. Louis and the NFL will have to take a backseat to politics for another week.

The NFL is hoping that once November rolls around leading to the actual election, their ratings will go up, but right now, that’s wishful thinking.