Nielsens: F1 Ratings, Manchester Derby, Frozen 4

ESPN2 scored the largest F1 audience on cable in six years. In other news, the Premier League’s Manchester Derby and the NCAA men’s hockey final also hit multi-year highs.

ESPN2 Scores Largest F1 Audience on Cable Since 2012

Sunday’s F1 Bahrain Grand Prix earned a 0.44 rating and 683,000 viewers on ESPN2, up 76% in ratings and 65% in viewership from last year on CNBC (0.25, 413K) and up 10% and 18% respectively from 2016 on NBCSN (0.40, 578K).

It was the most-watched F1 race on U.S. cable television in six years — since the 2012 U.S. Grand Prix on Speed Channel (688K).

The previous week, the season opening Australian Grand Prix had just 175,000 viewers, down 26% from last year (238K), down 21% from 2016 (222K), and the smallest audience for the race in at least five years.

Manchester Derby Hits High on NBC

Saturday’s English Premier League Manchester Derby delivered a 0.9 rating and 1.35 million viewers on NBC, up 76% in ratings and 72% in viewership from the same window last year (Southampton-Manchester City: 0.5, 784K) and up 58% and 59% respectively from 2016 (Manchester City-West Brom: 0.6, 850K).

Manchester United’s win was the most-watched EPL match since the 2014-15 season. Including the Spanish-language audience on Telemundo (309K) and the streaming audience on NBC Sports digital platforms (60K), the match had a combined audience of 1.72 million — the largest ever for a live Premier League match.

Earlier in the morning, Huddersfield-Brighton had a 0.25 rating and 318,000 viewers. On Sunday, West Ham-Chelsea had a 0.28 and 431,000 viewers and Southampton-Arsenal a 0.22 and 342,000.

Frozen Four Final Most-Watched Since ’14

The Minnesota (Duluth)-Notre Dame NCAA men’s hockey final had a 0.35 rating and 653,000 viewers on ESPN Saturday night, up 40% in ratings and viewership from last year (Minnesota Duluth-Denver: 0.25, 467K) and the most-watched final since 2014 (Union-Minnesota: 717K).

[Numbers from ESPN, ShowBuzz Daily 4.10]

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Jon Lewis

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.