Despite featuring Megan Rapinoe in an ill-fated final match, the NWSL Championship Game was no match for last year. Plus: women’s games accounted for most of the top audiences in week one of the college basketball season; plus the singleheader lead-out window continues to deliver.
NWSL Championship down double-digits from last year
Saturday’s NJ/NY-OL Reign NWSL Championship Game averaged a 0.42 rating and 817,000 viewers on CBS, down 19% in ratings and 11% in viewership from Portland-Kansas City last year (0.52, 915K), but still the league’s second-largest audience on record. The three most-watched matches in league history are the only three to have aired in primetime on broadcast television: this year’s final, last year’s final and Megan Rapinoe’s regular season finale in September (683K).
By comparison, last year’s MLS Cup averaged 2.16 million viewers, including 1.49 million on FOX. The WNBA Finals averaged 728,000 viewers across the ESPN networks, with the clinching Game 4 at 889,000 on ESPN.
It should be noted that the match had a significantly weaker college football lead-in (Missouri-Tennessee: 2.0, 3.62M) than last year (Florida-Georgia: 3.0, 5.62M). At the same time, it also faced far less competition than last year, when coverage aired opposite both college football and the World Series.
UConn-NC State second-best draw of college hoops opening week
Sunday’s UConn-NC State women’s college basketball game averaged a 0.39 rating and 625,000 viewers on ABC, trailing only an Arizona-Duke men’s game on ESPN2 two days earlier (0.6, 1.19M) as the most-watched game in the opening week of the season. Women’s games accounted for four of top six, with UConn-NC State joined by Iowa-Virginia Tech on ESPN2 Thursday night (0.31, 548K), Maryland-South Carolina on ABC earlier Sunday (0.32, 496K) and Notre Dame-South Carolina from Paris on the opening day of play (0.20, 370K).
For more, see the college basketball ratings page.
Singleheader lead-out continues to perform
CBS averaged a 0.9 rating and 1.76 million viewers for a “Courage in Sports: Gridiron Greatness” special following its NFL singleheader coverage on Sunday, ranking fourth out of the nine singleheader lead-out shows this season. The singleheader lead-out — a potpourri of sporting events including PBR bull riding, PBA bowling, women’s college volleyball, the NHRA and SailGP sailing — has averaged 1.59 million viewers across CBS and FOX this season. With the exception of the bowling telecast (1.19M), each program has averaged at least 1.4 million.
For more ratings, see the latest weekly charts. Going forward, ratings roundups will be in most cases replaced by the new daily ratings charts and analyses.
