- The start of the Aaron Rodgers era in Green Bay led to strong ratings on Monday night. The Packers’ victory over the Vikings drew a 45.5/62 combined rating on WISN-TV (32.1/44) and ESPN (13.4/18) in Milwaukee. To put that in perspective, “[t]he average local rating for a Packers game last regular season was 41.0.” The game drew a 24.3/40 on the ABC affiliate in Minneapolis/St. Paul. The second half of ESPN’s Monday Night Football doubleheader drew a 20.3/31 on Denver’s FOX affiliate and a 6.4/11 on the San Francisco/Oakland/San Jose CBS affiliate.
- In the battle of NFL studio shows, FOX finished on top with ease. The OT drew a 5.8/10 final rating with 9 million viewers from 7:30-8 PM Sunday, beating Football Night in America on NBC (3.3/6 and 5.3 million from 7:30-8 PM) by 76% and 71%, respectively. Meanwhile, the Sunday evening SportsCenter drew a solid 1.1 cable rating with 1.4 million viewers from 7-8 PM on ESPN.
- The men’s final at the U.S. Open drew the lowest rating in at least twelve years. Pushed to Monday afternoon by rain, Roger Federer‘s victory over Andy Murray drew a 1.9/4 final rating on CBS, down 49% from a 3.7/7 for last year’s match between Federer and Novak Djokovic, which aired on a Sunday. The match “generated about 300,000 unique users” on CBSSportsline.com, where it was streamed live.
