2015 Ratings Wrap: NFL Dominates Year of Milestones

List of top 50 sporting events available on page 1, list of top 50 non-NFL events available on page 2.

Top Events By League/Sport

Sport	Event	Rtg.	Vwrs.	Net
NFL	Patriots/Seahawks Super Bowl 49	47.5	114.44M	NBC
CFB	Ohio St./Oregon National Championship	18.6	34.15M	ESPN Megacast
CBB	Duke/Wisconsin National Championship	16.0	28.26M	CBS
Soccer (W)	USA/Japan Women’s World Cup final	—	26.70M	FOX, Telemundo
NBA	Warriors/Cavaliers NBA Finals Game 6	13.4	23.25M	ABC
Horse	Belmont Stakes Race portion	11.2	18.60M	NBC
MLB	Royals/Mets World Series Game 5	10.0	17.21M	FOX
Golf (M)	The Masters Final round	8.8	14.23M	CBS
NSCS	Daytona 500	7.7	13.36M	FOX
NHL	Lightning/Blackhawks Stanley Cup Final Game 6	4.4	8.01M	NBC
Soccer (M)	Mexico/Jamaica Gold Cup Final	—	6.53M	UNI, FS1
IndyCar	Indianapolis 500	4.2	6.48M	ABC
Tennis (W)	Serena W./Venus W. U.S. Open quarterfinal	3.7	6.00M	ESPN
Boxing	PBC on NBC 1	2.1	3.37M	NBC
Tennis (M)	Djokovic/Federer U.S. Open final	1.8	3.15M	ESPN
WCBB	UConn/Notre Dame National Championship	2.0	3.08M	ESPN
MMA	UFC on FOX 14	1.8	3.05M	FOX
WCWS	Michigan/Florida Game 3	1.4	2.27M	ESPN
CWS	Virginia/Vanderbilt Game 3	1.1	1.67M	ESPN
F1	Monaco GP	0.9	1.30M	NBC
Golf (W)	U.S. Women’s Open Final Round	0.7	970K	FOX
WNBA	WNBA All-Star Game	—	746K	ABC, ESPN
AFL	Sabercats/Sharks ArenaBowl	0.3	431K	ESPN

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Tags: List of Most-Watched Sporting Events

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Jon Lewis has been covering the sports media industry on a daily basis since 2006 as the founder and main writer of Sports Media Watch. You can contact him here or on the social media websites X (Twitter) or Bluesky.

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Comments 7

Muttley70 says:

11 years ago

I wonder if Mark Cuban will still be popping off about college basketball or maybe he has to shut up.I am always amused that a certain segment of NBA types and talking heads on pro sports radio feel the need to bash college basketball and somehow try to diminish the relevance of the NCAA Tournament. Look if you do not like NCAA Basketball that is fine, but shut up when it comes to trying to talk down the tournament.
- Tom Ado says:
  
  11 years ago
  
  The NCAA tournament is huge. But outside March, college basketball doesn’t come close to touching the NBA in relevance and there’s no denying that.
  - Muttley70 says:
    
    11 years ago
    
    It is true college basketball is a tournament sport, but the NBA season is too long and other than Xmas (not much competition) really doesn’t get all that great ratings until the playoffs. If it is one thing college basketball and the NBA share there’s a glut of regular season games that dilute the product.
    
    I would argue that college basketball regular season has a strong broad base appeal to fans of the specific schools and conferences and thus gets diluted when you look at the overall broader picture instead of the individual markets. Those markets tend to be smaller/rural than the larger Urban NBA markets. The same thing happens to college football on Saturday when you have 5-6 games going on at the same time. College sports are always going to be local and geographical until you get to the championship games (Football and Basketball) when you draw in the casual fan and unite the college fans.
    
    The biggest gripe I HAVE IS WITH SKIP BAYLESS and with certain talk radio hosts you hear on CBS Sports Radio/Fox Radio that only want to talk NBA. They always try to put down the NCAA tournament and “needs to be improved” or “fixed”. If it’s so overrated then why was the NCAA tournament 12 out of the 50 MOST WATCHED Non-NFL events. Like I said enjoy watching what you enjoy, but why the need to start this false comparison argument.
    
    Why must people not only like their sport, but feel the need to bash or talk down someone else’s sport?
- jerrytsao says:
  
  11 years ago
  
  It’s more of the excitement of football-style tourney for CBB drawing so much attention during March-April, outside that period the College BB are not so much relevant as the pro game, unlike College Football to NFL.
jerrytsao says:

11 years ago

Now it’s officially 2016 for me, great list as always Paulsen.
- Paulsen says:
  
  11 years ago
  
  Thanks for reading, always appreciated.
  - jerrytsao says:
    
    11 years ago
    
    No prob, just one more thing to perfect the list “50 Most-Watched Sporting Events of 2015“