More than twice as many viewers watched Andy Murray defeat Roger Federer at the Olympics Sunday than watched the same matchup at Wimbledon a month earlier.
Sunday’s Murray/Federer Olympic men’s tennis gold medal match earned a 5.5 final rating and 8.2 million viewers on NBC. The match, which aired from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM ET, aired live in all time zones.
For some perspective, the same matchup in the Wimbledon men’s singles final drew a 2.5 and 3.925 million on ESPN one month earlier.
Compared to the Serena Williams/Maria Sharapova women’s gold medal match one day earlier, Murray/Federer was off slightly in ratings (vs. 5.6) but up in viewership (vs. 7.9M).
The 5.5 rating for Sunday’s match tops every men’s ‘Grand Slam’ final since the Pete Sampras/Andre Agassi U.S. Open final in 2002 (6.2).
(Sunday’s numbers from NBC Universal Media Village)
