An unsurprising decline for the Concacaf Gold Cup final; a good weekend for golf; a six-year high for the NBA Summer League; and more.
Gold Cup final down from USMNT-Mexico in ’21
Sunday’s Mexico-Panama Concacaf Gold Cup final averaged a 1.6 rating and 4.32 million viewers on Univision (including pre-match coverage) and a 0.5 and 1.11 million on the FOX broadcast network (match portion only) — both unsurprisingly down from United States-Mexico two years ago (~5.7M and ~1.8M respectively). Univision averaged its smallest audience for a Gold Cup final since 2017, the only time in the past decade that Mexico failed to make the final.
Weekend of highs and near-highs for multiple golf tournaments
Tape-delayed final round coverage of the European Tour Scottish Open, won by Rory McIlroy, averaged a 1.2 rating and 1.86 million viewers on CBS Sunday — the second-largest audience on record for the event. Viewership declined 14% from the record high set last year (2.17M). The tournament began airing on broadcast television a decade ago.
The Scottish Open delivered the largest golf audience of the week. Final round coverage of the American Century Championship, won by NBA Warriors G Stephen Curry, placed second with a 0.8 and 1.44 million on NBC — the largest audience for the celebrity golf event in 19 years (2004: 1.6M). The full tournament averaged 978,000 viewers, a 14-year high.
Rounding out the weekend golf action, final round coverage of the LPGA Tour Dana Open (formerly the Marathon Classic) averaged a 0.6 and 1.00 million on CBS following the Scottish Open — the largest audience for the event since 2016 (1.04M).
NBA Summer League is most-watched in six years
The NBA Las Vegas Summer League averaged 192,000 viewers across ESPN and NBA TV, trailing only 2017 as the largest audience on record for the event. Viewership increased 28% last year’s average of 150,000. The ESPN networks averaged 310,000 viewers. (An earlier version of this post mistakenly said the ESPN and NBA TV average was 310,000.)
Monday’s Cavaliers-Rockets NBA Summer League final averaged 434,000 viewers on ESPN, up 46% from last year, when the game aired on a Sunday afternoon (Blazers-Knicks: 297K).
The two most-watched games of Summer League took place on opening night July 7: Victor Wembaynama’s debut with San Antonio against the Hornets (1.39M) and its Blazers-Rockets lead-in (734K).
Plus: MLB, SRX, UFC, NASCAR
- Regional Major League Baseball action on FOX averaged a 1.2 rating and 2.08 million viewers Saturday night, down from coverage featuring Red Sox-Yankees last year (1.4, 2.38M). The following night, Astros-Angels drew a 0.7 and 1.29 million on ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball; there was no window on the comparable weekend last year.
- The ESPN debut of the Superstar Racing Experience (SRX) averaged a 0.25 rating and 395,000 viewers last Thursday night, easily the smallest audience in the history of the series (13 telecasts). All prior windows aired on CBS in primetime. Ratings fell 57% and viewership 58% from last year’s debut telecast (0.6, 951K).
- The latest UFC Fight Night on ESPN averaged a 0.54 rating and 995,000 viewers Saturday night, up from the previous single-network main event two weeks earlier (0.48, 841K).
- Monday’s NASCAR Cup Series makeup race from New Hampshire averaged a 0.61 rating and 1.03 million viewers on USA Network, off 3% from the previous Monday makeup race on cable this season, Dover on FS1 in May (0.63, 1.06M). Viewership peaked at 1.3 million.
For more sports ratings from the past week, see the SMW weekly ratings chart.
