A Christmas Day game delivered college basketball’s top audience of the young season. Plus: the latest numbers for the NBA, a Boxing Day high for the Premier League and more.
Christmas Wisconsin-MSU game tops early college hoops slate
The Christmas Day Wisconsin-Michigan State college basketball game averaged a Nielsen-estimated 1.0 rating and 1.98 million viewers on FOX, marking the most-watched game of the college basketball season. The previous high was 1.96 million for Michigan State-Duke on ESPN in the Champions Classic. The Badgers’ win aired opposite a Pelicans-Heat NBA game on ESPN (1.7, 3.50M).
For all of 2020, a year that did not include an NCAA Tournament, Wisconsin-Michigan State ranks as the eighth-most watched college basketball game.
In other action, ESPN averaged a 0.75 and 1.31 million for Kentucky-Louisville last Saturday — down 40% in ratings and 36% in viewership from last year’s meeting between the teams, which aired on CBS (1.3, 2.05M). In the same window on ABC, Houston-UCF had a 0.44 and 710,000. Both games aired in place of canceled college football bowls.
Over on CBS, Gonzaga-Virginia scored a 0.8 and 1.35 million. Last year’s comparable window was the aforementioned Louisville-Kentucky game.
Mixed results for Tuesday’s NBA routs on TNT
Tuesday’s Pelicans-Suns NBA regular season game, in which Phoenix led by as many as 40 points, averaged 1.15 million viewers on TNT — up 9% from the network’s final game of 2019 (12/26/19 Blazers-Jazz: 1.06M). Earlier in the night, the Bucks’ 47-point win over the Heat averaged 837,000 (-29%).
Compared to TNT’s third night of coverage last season, which took place in October and faced Thursday Night Football, Bucks-Heat increased 27% and Pelicans-Suns 47% (vs. 10/31/19 Heat-Hawks: 658K and Nuggets-Pelicans: 784K).
Plus: EPL, PBC, WWE
Last Saturday’s Chelsea-Arsenal Premier League match averaged 1.2 million viewers on the NBC broadcast network (and NBC Sports digital platforms), the largest audience on record for a Boxing Day match. The four-match Boxing Day schedule averaged 664,000 on NBC, NBCSN and digital, a record for the annual day-after-Christmas slate. … The latest edition of Premier Boxing Champions on FOX averaged a 0.6 rating and 920,000 viewers last Saturday, down from the previous edition in November, which was partially preempted by presidential election coverage (982K). … Boosted by an NFL lead-in, the Christmas edition of WWE Smackdown averaged 3.30 million viewers on FOX — the show’s largest audience since its Fox debut in October 2019 (3.89M).
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 12.30, 12.31, NBC Sports PR/Twitter 12.30, Wrestling Observer 12.29]
