The Premier League returned from a one-week hiatus on a down note, with one exception.
Last Sunday’s Manchester United/Arsenal English Premier League match scored 717,000 viewers on NBCSN, up 24% from Arsenal/Everton last year (579K), up 38% from Liverpool/Swansea City in 2014 (520K), and the most-watched early Sunday match since Manchester United/Liverpool last March (950K).
The Red Devils’ win scored the eighth-largest Premier League audience of the season on cable. The top nine have taken place on a Sunday morning. In addition, Sunday’s match was the most-watched Premier League telecast of the past week — a span that included both weekend and midweek matches.
Other matches did not fare as well. Last Saturday, West Brom/Crystal Palace had a 0.4 final rating and 571,000 viewers on the NBC broadcast network — down 43% in ratings and 46% in viewership from Manchester United/Crystal Palace in 2014 (0.7, 1.1M). NBC did not air a match in week 27 of last season.
The comparison may seem unfair, considering that the 2014 match was one of the most-watched EPL telecasts in U.S. TV history. By any standard, however, last week’s match did poorly — almost certainly hitting an NBC season-low (viewership for several matches on the network was not available).
NBCSN scored 392,000 for Leicester City/Norwich City earlier in the morning, down 41% from Manchester United/Sunderland last year (663K). West Ham/Sunderland started the day off with 238,000, down 24% from West Ham/Crystal Palace last year (314K) and down 52% from Chelsea/Everton in ’14 (492K).
In other action, the midweek Leicester City/West Brom (199K) and Liverpool/Manchester City (213K) matches declined 14% and 25%, respectively, from Aston Villa/West Brom (232K) and West Ham/Chelsea (283K) last year.
(Wknd. numbers via NBC Sports Group Press Box, Awful Announcing, Sports Business Daily)
