Arguably the highest-profile International Series game yet delivered the NFL’s largest morning audience in eight years. Plus: Colorado scored its smallest audience of the season; the NBA In-Season Tournament got off to a healthy start on ESPN.
Dolphins-Chiefs is most-watched morning NFL game since 2015
Sunday’s Dolphins-Chiefs NFL International Series game from Frankfurt averaged a 4.8 rating and 9.18 million viewers on NFL Network, making it the most-watched morning NFL game since the first one — Jets-Dolphins from London on CBS in 2015 (9.86M). As goes without saying, it also ranks as the most-watched morning game ever on NFL Network — blowing past the previous high of 5.55 million for Seahawks-Buccaneers from Germany last year.
The Chiefs’ win delivered the second-largest NFL audience on cable this season, trailing the ESPN and ESPN2 portion of Bills-Jets in Week 1 (10.96M). Keep in mind that only two Monday Night Football games have aired exclusively on the ESPN networks thus far — and both overlapped with a competing matchup on ABC.
Overall, it ranks third among cable sporting events since Game 7 of the Heat-Celtics NBA Eastern Conference Finals on TNT in May (12.0M), trailing the aforementioned Bills-Jets game and a a Colorado State-Colorado college football game on ESPN in September (9.30M).
The three NFL International Series games on NFL Network this season have averaged 6.5 million viewers, up 20% from last year. An additional game aired on ESPN+, which is not Nielsen-rated. The rest of Sunday’s NFL ratings were delayed as of late Tuesday morning.
Colorado posts smallest audience of season
Saturday’s Oregon State-Colorado college football game averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.77 million viewers on ESPN, marking the least-watched Buffaloes game on Nielsen-rated television this season. The previous low was 3.29 million for a Friday night game against Stanford. Colorado’s first five games this season each topped seven million viewers, but the audience has steadily declined as the team’s record has gone south.
Despite the lower numbers, Colorado’s loss delivered the largest college football audience of the weekend on cable, a superlative that would have been unthinkable for the same matchup in the same timeslot last year. Ratings increased 37% and viewership 36% from Cal-USC in the same window a year ago (1.1, 2.04M).
College football ratings on broadcast television were delayed as of late Tuesday morning.
Healthy start for NBA In-Season Tournament
The NBA In-Season Tournament debuted with an average of 1.72 million viewers on ESPN Friday night, up 35% from the network’s average for Friday games last November. Knicks-Bucks averaged a 1.0 rating and 1.64 million viewers and Mavericks-Nuggets a 1.0 and 1.80 million, both up sharply from last year’s equivalent windows — Pacers-Wizards (0.42, 736K) and Pelicans-Suns (0.52, 1.03M) opposite the World Series.
