NFL Draft viewership bounced back from last year, led by a double-digit jump for the primary ESPN broadcast.
Thursday’s opening round of the NFL Draft averaged a combined 11.29 million viewers across ESPN (5.62M), ABC (4.11M) and NFL Network (1.56M), up 13% from last year (10.03M). The ESPN and ABC broadcasts increased 26% and 8% respectively from last year (4.45M; 3.80M), which made up for a 12% decline for NFL Network.
The combined audience is the third-highest on record for night one of the draft, trailing 2021 (12.52M) and the anomalous 2020 edition that aired during an unprecedented drought of live sporting events (15.26M). Keep in mind that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen’s final nationals prior to 2021, meaning that the 2018 (11.21M) and 2019 (11.10M) drafts likely had more viewers all things being equal.
Six of the seven largest NFL draft audiences have come in as many years, coinciding with the addition of an over-the-air simulcast in 2018.
The NFL Draft compares favorably with many of the highest-profile events on the sporting calendar, with Thursday’s audience topping two games of last year’s Astros-Phillies World Series (Game 2: 10.79M; Game 3: 11.16M). It also came close to the least-watched games of last year’s NBA Finals (Warriors-Celtics Game 3: 11.52M) and last month’s NCAA men’s Final Four (San Diego State-Florida Atlantic: 11.90M).
By NFL standards, the draft is not a particularly strong draw. Round one trailed 108 of the 135 regular season NFL windows last year, pulling an audience on par with Bengals-Browns on Monday Night Football in Week 8 (11.30M).
Round one of the draft averaged a combined 3.5 rating in adults 18-49, a 2.55 in 18-34 and a 4.1 in 25-54, each up from last year (3.2, 2.3, 3.8) and television’s highest ratings on those demographics since the NCAA men’s basketball title game earlier this month (3.7, 2.9, 4.4). ESPN’s broadcast accounted for the lion’s share in each demographic (2.0, 1.6, 2.2).
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 4.28)
