That's not how mass media works. 10,010,000 mildly interested people beats 10,000,000 highly interested people. If you care about the sport you're going to watch even if the coverage I crap, thus people who care are ignorable if they can get an extra 0.01% of viewers or just save some money.

So yes there are dumb people in the US and NBC wants them to tune in. But, that says little about the rest of the US population.