Super Bowl pregame viewership increased double-digits, but the Eagles’ lopsided win dragged down the postgame shows. Plus: NASCAR’s Duel at Daytona hit a six-year high, the NBA entered the All-Star break with gains, and more recent ratings.
Note: Nielsen as of last week expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to cover 100 percent of markets (up from two-thirds previously). As a result, viewership figures will generally compare favorably not only to past years, but even to past weeks.
Super Bowl pregame up, blowout dings postgame
FOX averaged 23.4 million viewers for its Super Bowl pregame show, which ran from 1 PM ET until kickoff — up 13% from the equivalent time period on CBS last year. Keep in mind last year’s CBS pregame began an hour later (CBS carried the documentary “You Are Looking Live” in the 1 PM hour last year). Excluding the first hour, this year’s pregame averaged 27.4 million, up 12% from last year (24.5M).
While the Super Bowl itself delivered the largest official Nielsen-estimated audience on record, the lopsided nature of the game dragged down postgame shows. The FOX postgame show averaged a 22.9 rating and 60.3 million viewers, down 12% and 7% respectively from last year on CBS (26.0, 65.09M). That led into an episode of the game show “The Floor,” which drew a 6.2 and 13.94 million — not only down sharply from last year’s episode of the CBS series “Tracker” (9.1, 18.44M) but the least-watched Super Bowl lead-out yet.
The postgame declines extended to cable, with the postgame editions of ESPN’s NFL Primetime (1.62M), SportsCenter (936K) and NFL Network’s NFL Gameday Final (647K) each down 16% from a year ago. Notably, pregame coverage also declined on ESPN, which averaged 1.15 million for Sunday NFL Countdown — down from last year’s. 1.27 million.
NASCAR Duel at Daytona is most-watched since 2018
Thursday’s NASCAR Duel at Daytona averaged a 0.9 rating and 1.84 million viewers on FS1, flat in ratings and 12% in viewership from last year (0.9, 1.64M) and the largest audience for the event since 2018 (1.98M). The previous night, qualifying coverage averaged a 0.48 and 916,000 — up 4% and 12% respectively from a year ago (0.46, 821K).
NBA sees gains ahead of All-Star break
Wednesday’s Warriors-Mavericks and Spurs-Celtics NBA regular season games averaged 1.53 and 1.21 million viewers respectively on ESPN, the former up 16% and the latter up 40% from last year’s pairing of Clippers-Warriors (1.32M) and Bulls-Cavaliers (864K).
On TNT Tuesday night, Knicks-Pacers and Grizzlies-Suns both averaged 1.1 million, up 18% and 10% respectively from last year’s comparable doubleheader (Thunder-Magic: 931K; Kings-Suns: 1.0M). (The Knicks-Pacers game aired on TNT alone and Grizzlies-Suns aired on TNT and truTV.)
Rounding out the pre All-Star slate, Thunder-Timberwolves averaged 1.2 million on TNT and truTV Thursday night, up from 1.1 million for Bucks-Grizzlies last year.
Plus: College hoops, Unrivaled, Millrose Games
— Tuesday’s Tennessee-Kentucky men’s college basketball game averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.48 million viewers on ESPN, up 23% in ratings and 35% in viewership from North Carolina-Syracuse last year (0.6, 1.09M) and the most-watched weeknight game on the ESPN networks since Thanksgiving week. The previous high was 1.40 million for the previous matchup of Tennessee and Kentucky two weeks earlier.
— The new women’s basketball league Unrivaled was averaging 179,000 viewers on TNT and truTV through last Saturday, with that figure rising to 218,000 excluding windows that aired exclusively on truTV (99K).
— Last weekend’s track and field Millrose Games averaged 1.2 million viewers on NBC and Peacock (Nielsen + Adobe Analytics), up 5% from last year (1.1M) and the highest average for the event since 2019.
