Thanks to incessant promotion, the NFL Draft did very well on Saturday, if not quite as well as it did last year.
The ratings were down 7% on Saturday (from a 4.6 to a 4.3) and 16% on Sunday (from a 1.9 to a 1.6), though ESPN can still crow that the event was the second most-watched NFL Draft the network has ever televised. The “first 4.5 hours of ESPN?s 2007 NFL Draft coverage (noon-4:30 p.m.) delivered a 5.0 HH rating — the second consecutive year this portion of the Draft has delivered at least a 5.0 rating.“
The NFL Draft will likely end up beating its competition, namely NBA Playoff basketball on TNT and Red Sox/Yankees on FOX. In addition to beating its sports competitors, the Draft also trounced the Democratic Debate on MSNBC, 5.1 million viewers to 2.2 million. While it should be pointed out that several NBA Playoff games and Yankees/Red Sox games also defeated the Debate, that statistic only goes to show just how far into the mainstream consciousness the NFL Draft has gone.
E! Online link found via AOL Fanhouse.
