The first WNBA Finals sweep in four years ended with the largest Game 3 audience in four years. Also: numbers for last week’s NFL pregame shows, out-of-home figures for the NFL on FOX, and Thursday’s college football ratings on ESPN.
WNBA Finals Ends With Big Increase
Wednesday’s Storm-Mystics WNBA Finals Game 3 earned a 0.35 rating and 519,000 viewers on ESPN2, up 30% in ratings and 20% in viewership from last year (Lynx-Sparks: 0.27, 433K) and the most-watched Game 3 since the previous sweep-clincher in 2014 (Mercury-Sky: 607K). Compared to last year’s Game 5 clincher, which aired on ESPN, ratings fell 41% (from 0.59) and viewership 42% (from 902K).
Game 2 of the series had a 0.39 and 546,000 on ABC Sunday, a 43% increase in viewership over last year’s Game 2, which aired on ESPN2 (381K). Compared to last year’s Game 1 on ABC, ratings were flat and viewership fell 4% from 566,000.
Last Friday’s Game 1 had 226,000 for the full game on ESPNEWS and 290,000 for a second half simulcast on ESPN.
The full series averaged 481,000 viewers, down 14% from last year’s five-game series (559K) and the smallest average since 2013 (Lynx-Dream: 345K). Viewership did increase 3% from the first three games of last year’s series. The complete WNBA Playoffs, which included four games on ESPNEWS and none on ESPN, averaged 338,000 viewers (-2%).
ESPN’s NFL Countdown Scores Biggest Bump of Week 1
ESPN’s Sunday NFL Countdown pregame show had 1.40 million viewers last Sunday, up 14% from last year (1.22M) but down 29% from 2016 (1.98M). It scored the biggest increase of Sunday’s pregame shows.
FOX NFL Sunday scored a 3.2 rating and 4.8 million viewers (+6%) and CBS’ The NFL Today had a 2.4 (+4%) and 3.76 million (-1%). Rounding out the pregame slate, NBC’s Football Night in America drew a 4.3 (-16%) and 7.37 million (-19%).
NFL on FOX Gets Out-of-Home Lift
Last Sunday’s NFL national window on FOX (Cowboys-Panthers in 80% of markets) scored a Nielsen out-of-home audience of 2.68 million viewers — boosting the total audience 10% from 23.30 to 25.98 million. The early doubleheader window had an OOH audience of 1.27 million, boosting the audience 9% from 12.54 to 13.81 million.
BC-Wake Forest Not That Bad Given Early Start
Thursday’s Boston College-Wake Forest college football game, which was moved up to 5:30 PM ET due to the incoming Hurricane Florence, had a 0.6 rating and 863,000 viewers on ESPN — down just a tick in ratings and 18% in viewership from Boise State-New Mexico in primetime last year (0.7, 1.05M). Compared to Houston-Cincinnati two years ago, viewership fell a steeper 60 percent from 2.16 million.
[Numbers from Programming Insider 9.13, 9.14, Sports Business Daily 9.12, ShowBuzz Daily 9.11 a, b, Fox Sports PR/Twitter 9.11, 9.13]
