While NBCSN scored one of its top Premier League audiences of the season, NBC hit a season low.
Last Saturday’s Southampton/West Ham English Premier League match drew a 0.4 final rating and 609,000 viewers on NBC, down 56% in ratings and 51% in viewership from Swansea/Cardiff two years ago (0.9, 1.2M). There was no comparable match in week 25 of last season, which consisted of midweek matches.
Southampton’s win ranks as the least-watched Premier League match of the season on NBC, according to Sports Business Daily. It also trailed all of last season’s matches on the network, none of which dipped lower than 614,000. Head-to-head, it trailed Bundesliga coverage on FOX and Fox Deportes (appx. 810K).
For the first time all season, NBCSN drew a larger Premier League audience than NBC on the same weekend. The network scored 779,000 viewers for Chelsea/Manchester United on Sunday morning, the fourth-largest EPL audience on cable this season. The top three spots are held by Arsenal/Manchester United in October (866K), Manchester City/Chelsea in August (818K) and Arsenal/Chelsea in January (794K).
Bournemouth/Arsenal had 345,000 earlier Sunday morning. Shifting to Saturday, Manchester City/Leicester City had 406,000 in the early window, and Tottenham/Watford (392K) and Liverpool/Sunderland (305K) combined for 697,000 in the mid-morning window on NBCSN and USA Network, respectively.
Rounding out the recent EPL action, NBCSN drew 248,000 for Leicester City/Liverpool on February 2 and 176,000 for Watford/Chelsea on February 3.
(Wknd. numbers via Sports Business Daily, Awful Announcing)
