NFL Draft viewership increased double-digits, but the bigger ratings win for the NFL this week may be from three months ago.
The full, three-day NFL Draft averaged a combined 6.0 million viewers across the ESPN family of networks, NFL Network and digital platforms, up 12% from last year (5.3M). (That average, released Monday, is based on Nielsen fast-nationals.)
Friday’s second and third rounds averaged a combined 5.53 million viewers, up 10% from last year (5.03M). ABC was primarily responsible for the year-over-year gain as its “College Gameday” coverage jumped 27% to 2.70 million. That made up for a 4% decline for ESPN and ESPN2 (1.84M). NFL Network was essentially flat with a fraction of an increase (989K, +0.4%).
The draft faced unusually tough NBA playoff competition Friday night as Kings-Warriors (4.98M) and Grizzlies-Lakers (4.64M) delivered two of the three largest first round audiences ever on ESPN.
Saturday’s third round coverage averaged 3.09 million, up 11% from last year (2.78M). ABC again led the way with 1.31 million (+20%). All three networks posted gains Saturday, with NFL Network up 15% (to 583K) and ESPN up 2% (to 1.20M).
As previously noted, last Thursday’s opening round averaged a combined 11.29 million, up 13%.
In a rarity, the draft may not rank as the biggest success story for the NFL this week. FOX announced Tuesday that Nielsen has revised the audience for February’s Chiefs-Eagles Super Bowl, which is now said to have averaged a 40.4 rating (up from 40.0) and 114.21 million viewers (up from 112.17M) on FOX and 115.1 million across all platforms.
FOX says the 115.1 million figure surpasses the 2015 Super Bowl as the largest audience ever for the game, though apples-to-apples comparisons are complicated by the differences ways Super Bowl broadcasters calculate the numbers. (Including NBC’s 2015 streaming audience of 973,000, a figure calculated by Adobe Analytics, that Super Bowl still ranks higher at 115.8 million.)
Per The Athletic, the reason for the revision is that Nielsen mistakenly attributed some of the FOX Super Bowl audience to NFL Network, which — as reported here at the time — was said to have averaged an unrealistic 1.2 million viewers during the game. Between that mistake and a separate error involving out-of-home viewing, Nielsen estimated that additional 2.1 million viewers watched the game in the average minute.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 5.2, NFL PR, additional info from The Athletic 5.2)
