Thanks to a rain-delay that pushed the game into primetime, Phillies-Braves hit a four-year viewer high on FOX Wednesday night. Plus: the NHL opened its season with back-to-back nights of declines; NASCAR’s streak of declines continued last weekend; and more.
Delayed to primetime, Phillies-Braves is top LDS Game 2 in four years
Wednesday’s Phillies-Braves MLB National League Division Series Game 2, which was pushed back from late afternoon to primetime due to rain, averaged a 2.4 rating and 4.20 million viewers on FOX — marking the most-watched LDS Game 2 in four years (2018 Yankees-Red Sox: 5.06M). Viewership more-than-doubled last year’s Braves-Brewers Game 2 on TBS, which aired on a Saturday afternoon (~2.2M).
Game 1 the prior afternoon averaged a 1.6 and 2.83 million on FOX (2.86 million including Fox Deportes and streaming), up 34% from last year’s Friday afternoon Braves-Brewers opener on TBS (2.12M).
The two Phillies-Braves games were the first Division Series games on the FOX broadcast network since 2006.
Returning to Wednesday night, Padres-Dodgers Game 2 averaged 3.11 million viewers on FS1 — down from last year’s Saturday night Dodgers-Giants Game 2 on TBS (~3.8M). The game overlapped with the aforementioned Phillies-Braves Game 2 on FOX.
First two nights of NHL season decline from last year
Tuesday’s Lightning-Rangers NHL Opening Night game averaged a 0.43 rating and 744,000 viewers on ESPN, down more than 20% from Penguins-Lightning last year, which marked the NHL’s return to ESPN after an 18-year absence (0.56, ~983K). The 0.43 rating is the lowest for the first game of the season in three years, since Capitals-Blues drew a 0.42 on NBCSN in 2019. (The January 2021 season opener, Flyers-Penguins on NBCSN, had a 0.48.)
Viewership also declined sharply for the Golden Knights-Kings nightcap, which averaged 556,000.
The downward trend continued into Wednesday night, when TNT averaged a 0.36 and 629,000 for Capitals-Bruins — down double-digits from last year’s Rangers-Capitals game (0.44, ~817K). The Blackhawks-Avalanche nightcap (526K) technically posted a 1% increase, but that is based on last year’s undercounted audience for the same matchup (~522K).
NASCAR’s Charlotte “Roval” latest race to hit low
Last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series Charlotte “Roval” averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.39 million viewers on NBC, marking the lowest rating and viewership for the fall Charlotte race in at least two decades (includes makeup races). All six Cup Series playoff races this season have declined, with each of the past five at multi-year lows.
In other action, the rain-shortened Formula 1 Japanese Grand Prix averaged a 0.28 and 549,000 on ESPN2 in the overnight hours of Sunday morning — down 29% from the last time the race was held in 2019 (772K). Viewership peaked at 767,000 in the first quarter-hour of the race at 1 AM ET, before the race was halted after two laps due to rain. The audience was 676,000 when the race resumed at 3:15 AM ET.
Plus: MLS, USWNT, NBA preseason
The ESPN family of networks averaged 343,000 for Major League Soccer coverage during the recently completed regular season, up 16% from last year (295K) and the networks’ largest regular season audience since 2007. … Last Friday’s United States-England women’s soccer international friendly averaged 726,000 viewers on FOX, the network’s most-watched women’s friendly in five years. … ESPN averaged 744,000 viewers for Timberwolves-Lakers and 724,000 for Nets-Bucks in an NBA preseason doubleheader Wednesday, outpacing all of last year’s preseason games. The games each outdrew the competing NHL windows on TNT.
(Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 10.13, ShowBuzz Daily 10.11, 10.12, 10.13, network PR)
