Ratings roundup — Stanley Cup playoff viewership continues to trend up; ESPN neared a high for last weekend’s UFC Fight Night; plus, a soft week for MLB and a record for the Boston Marathon.
Early Stanley Cup audience up on ESPN networks
The first four nights of the Stanley Cup Playoffs averaged 668,000 viewers across ESPN and ESPN2 (13 games), up 14% from the networks’ equivalent coverage last year (12 games). Panthers-Bruins delivered the two largest audiences of the postseason thus far, following a previously-reported 1.07 million for Game 1 last Monday with 909,000 for Wednesday’s Game 2 — both up double-digits from last year’s equivalent Bruins-Hurricanes games.
Outside of Panthers-Bruins, the top draws of the first four nights were Kraken-Avalanche on ESPN (737K on Tuesday and 875K on Thursday), Rangers-Devils on TBS (775K on Tuesday and 757K on Thursday) and Lightning-Maple Leafs on ESPN (715K on Tuesday and 733K on Thursday).
Ranking further down are Islanders-Hurricanes on ESPN2 (642K Monday and 649K Wednesday), Kings-Oilers on ESPN (483K Monday and 595K Wednesday) and Wild-Stars on ESPN2 (561K Monday and 527K Wednesday). Jets-Golden Knights has delivered the two smallest audiences thus far, with just 267,000 for Game 1 on ESPN2 Tuesday and 338,000 for Game 2 on TBS Thursday.
ESPN nears UFC Fight Night high
Last Saturday’s UFC Fight Night on ESPN averaged a 0.65 rating and 1.22 million viewers, the third-largest audience for a main event on linear TV since ESPN/ABC began broadcasting UFC in 2019. ABC’s first main event in January 2021 and ESPN’s first ever main event in February 2019 hold the top two spots.
Viewership outpaced the previous week’s UFC 287 prelims (1.12M).
Soft numbers for recent MLB games
Last week’s Rangers-Astros Sunday Night Baseball game averaged a 0.55 rating and 994,000 viewers on ESPN, down 13% in ratings and 10% in viewership from Braves-Padres on Easter Sunday last year (0.6, 1.11M). Brewers-Padres the previous day drew a 0.16 and 285,000 on FS1, also no match for Braves-Padres a year ago (0.30, 545K).
In other MLB action, a lead-in from Rangers-Devils did not give TBS much of a lift for the Mets-Dodgers game that followed, which averaged 228,000 viewers — down from Braves-Dodgers in the same window last year (234K).
Boston Marathon is most-watched on record
Coverage of the Boston Marathon averaged 369,000 viewers on ESPN last Monday, up 108% from last year on USA Network (177K) and the largest audience for the event on record — surpassing the previous high of 336,000 on ESPN2 in 2001. This year’s marathon was the first on the ESPN networks since 2004 and also held extra resonance as this was the ten-year anniversary of the bombing attack at the event in 2013.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily, network PR)
