Past the halfway point of 2017, here is a look at the year’s most-watched events so far.
Photo by Rich Graessle/Icon Sportswire
The NFL owns the ten largest sports audiences of the year, led as usual by the Super Bowl. In a rarity, neither the AFC nor NFC title games took second-place. That distinction belongs to Packers-Cowboys in the Divisional Round, which had 48.5 million viewers.
Sporting Events in the Top 50Outside of the NFL, the Clemson-Alabama college football national championship earned the largest audience of the first half, ranking 11th overall with 25.3 million viewers. Not far behind, the clinching game of the NBA Finals clocked in at 24.5 million viewers (#13) and the North Carolina-Gonzaga men’s basketball championship had 23.0 million (#15).
Further down, the Kentucky Derby ranks 24th (16.4M), the Daytona 500 29th (11.9M), final round of The Masters 30th (11.1M) and MLB All-Star Game 38th (9.2M). The clinching game of the Stanley Cup Final made the list at #50, the first time since this feature started in 2009 that any top 50 event had fewer than 7.0 million viewers (6.985M). This time last year, the 50th ranked event had 8.1 million — and the Olympics were yet to come.
MOST-WATCHED SPORTING EVENTS OF 2017 Through July 12; does not include streaming SportsMediaWatch.com
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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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
Last week’s U.S. Open mixed doubles semifinals and final averaged 492,000 viewers, up 43% from last year, which was the first year of the revamped mixed doubles tournament. That figure includes 552,000 for the final. Read more
NASCAR Cup Series racing from New Hampshire averaged a 0.9 rating and 1.69 million viewers on USA Network a week ago Sunday, per the Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” methodology that is the official currency, and a 1.0 and 1.79 million per the prior panel-only metric that NASCAR now reports for its races — both up from last year, when the race averaged a 0.7 and 1.29 million opposite NFL games. Read more
Final round coverage of the PGA Tour BMW Championship averaged a 2.2 rating and 3.85 million viewers on CBS a week ago Sunday, marking the largest audience for the tournament since the inaugural edition in 2007, won by Tiger Woods. Read more
FOX topped Week 2 of the NFL preseason with a 2.6 rating and 4.90 million viewers for a Sunday night Seahawks-Titans game August 23, down from the network’s lone preseason game last year, a higher-profile pairing of the Bears and Bills in the same Sunday night window (5.1M). Read more
The Brewers-Braves MLB Little League Classic averaged 2.02 million viewers on ESPN a week ago Sunday, marking the most-watched MLB telecast on the ESPN networks this season. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was also the only Sunday night game on ESPN this season, after the network gave up its “Sunday Night Baseball” package in the offseason. Read more
