The first two All-Star games of 2024 continued the recent trend of declines.
Sunday’s NFL Pro Bowl Games averaged a combined 3.1 rating and 5.79 million viewers across ABC (2.1, 3.85M), ESPN (1.0, 1.83M), Disney XD (0.05, 75K) and ESPN Deportes (0.02, 42K), marking the smallest audience on record for the NFL’s annual All-Star event, excluding the taped, virtual “Pro Bowl Celebration” in 2021.
Ratings fell 9% and viewership 8% from last year, which marked the debut of the new flag football format (3.4, 6.28M).
Even at a new low, the Pro Bowl still averaged a higher rating and more viewers than last year’s NBA All-Star Game on TNT and TBS (4.59M). (The NBA game still ranks ahead in the young adult demographics.) The MLB All-Star Game still ranks as the most-watched of the exhibitions with an audience last year of 7.01 million, followed by the Home Run Derby at 6.11 million.
The Pro Bowl Games ranked as the highest rated and most-watched sportscast of the weekend, comfortably topping a pair of high-profile Saturday basketball games — a Duke-North Carolina men’s college basketball game on ESPN (1.6, 3.20M) and a Lakers-Knicks NBA regular season game on ABC (1.6, 2.74M).
In other All-Star action, Saturday’s NHL All-Star Game averaged a 0.7 rating and 1.40 million viewers on ABC — down from a 1.0 and 1.50 million last year and topping only 2022 (1.15M) as the least-watched edition of the game since 2015 on NBCSN (1.19M).
