Thrilling matches involving big names have boosted U.S. Open viewership. In other news, the Mayweather-McGregor prelims delivered good numbers on FOX, and the BIG3 title game landed somewhere between the NBA Summer League and the WNBA Finals.
Primetime Thrillers Boost U.S. Open
- The first two days of the U.S. Open have averaged 613,000 viewers on ESPN and ESPN2, up 7% from last year (574K) but down 22% from 2015, when Serena Williams‘ run for the calendar year Grand Slam boosted the numbers (788K). Viewership declined for both day sessions thus far, but the night sessions have picked up the slack. Tuesday’s primetime window, featuring Roger Federer‘s five-set win over Frances Tiafoe, posted 954,000 viewers on ESPN — up 13% from last year (844K) and up 3% from 2015 (926K). Monday’s primetime coverage, which featured Maria Sharapova–Simona Halep, had 608,000 on ESPN2 (+21%).
Mayweather-McGregor Prelims Do Well For FOX
- The preliminary card leading into Saturday’s Floyd Mayweather–Conor McGregor fight earned a 1.4 rating and 2.4 million viewers on FOX, marking the network’s most-watched boxing or UFC telecast this year. Looking solely at boxing telecasts, it was the most-watched card on FOX since the network’s Premier Boxing Champions debut in January of last year. The telecast, which peaked with 3.1 million viewers from 8:45-9 PM ET, had 2.6 million with Fox Deportes and Fox Sports GO included.
BIG3 Title Game Behind Summer League, Ahead of WNBA
- Saturday’s BIG3 Championship game earned a 0.49 rating and 787,000 viewers on the FOX broadcast network, not surprisingly the largest audience yet for the first-year league. The telecast earned a smaller audience than the NBA Summer League title game on ESPN last month (836K) but topped Game 5 of last year’s WNBA Finals on ESPN2 (528K). It was outdrawn head-to-head by the Travers Stakes horse race on NBC (0.7, 1.2M), though it had a larger audience in adults 18-49 (358K to 269K).
