2016 Ratings Wrap: Despite Down Years, NFL and Olympics Dominate

The SMX World Championship Series, including the indoor AMA Supercross Championship and outdoor Pro Motocross Championship, averaged 614,000 viewers on NBC across a Nielsen-measured linear audience and streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics — up 17% from last year.

Nielsen has reprocessed the viewership for NBC’s four NFL games from Week 1-3 of the season. The Patriots-Seahawks Kickoff Game has been updated to 25.2 million, up from an originally-reported 25.1 million. The Week 1 Cowboys-Giants “Sunday Night Football” game has been updated to 25.82 million, up from 25.66 million. Colts-Chiefs the following week has been updated to 24.43 million, up from 24.29 million. Finally, Rams-Broncos in Week 3 has been updated to 20.96 million, up from 20.77 million.

Last Wednesday’s Liberty-Dream WNBA semifinal Game 2 averaged 1.4 million viewers on ESPN, down from Mercury-Lynx in the comparable window last year (1.5M). Last year’s games took place earlier in the calendar and did not face the MLB Postseason. Read more

The MLB American League Division Series was averaging 3.4 million viewers on TNT Sports through Thursday, up 2% from last year’s ALDS on Fox Sports. Last Thursday’s Guardians-White Sox Game 4 averaged 3.8 million opposite NFL “Thursday Night Football,” on par with Brewers-Cubs in the same window last year. Read more

Final round coverage of golf’s Presidents Cup averaged 2.0 million viewers on NBC last Sunday across a Nielsen-measured linear audience (1.1 rating, 1.88M viewers) and streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics — up 37% from the previous edition two years ago and the highest since 2017 (four telecasts).

NASCAR last week resumed reporting the official Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” ratings and viewership figures for its races, a move that coincides with Nielsen having rolled out a modified version of the methodology at the end of last month. The first race following that decision, Darlington over Labor Day weekend, averaged a 1.0 rating and 1.98 million viewers on USA Network — up 6% and 5% respectively from last year (1.0, 1.9M). Read more

NASCAR Cup Series racing from Daytona averaged a 1.7 rating and 3.12 million viewers on NBC a week ago Saturday, per the “Big Data + Panel” methodology that is the official Nielsen currency, and a 1.8 and 3.51 million under the old “panel-only” metric NASCAR now publicizes for its races. Read more