We can't stress this enough — increasingly, the chief reason for some TV networks to exist is to transmit NFL games. And at Fox, NFL games and "shoulder programming" accounted for an astonishing 63% of the time viewers spent with the network. MoffettNathansonBut those trends should still worry both the NFL and the TV networks that pay it many billions of dollars every year. But to state the obvious: TV networks pay the NFL many billions of dollars because the NFL delivers TV eyeballs, not because it delivers Instagram eyeballs. And if younger viewers are starting to tune out of the NFL — again, like they have tuned out of everything else on TV — that's going to be a problem for the league and the TV guys.

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Persons: —, Robert Fishman, Per Fishman, NFL — Organizations: Service, NFL, Kansas City, Baltimore, Business, MoffettNathanson, CBS, Fox