A particularly high-profile draft class helped the NFL Draft to its second-largest audience on record.
Thursday’s opening round of the NFL Draft averaged a combined 13.6 million viewers across TV and digital platforms, marking the largest audience for the event outside of 2020, when it was among a handful of live sportscasts in a two-month span (15.5M). (Keep in mind Nielsen did not include out-of-home viewing in its estimates until fall 2020 and did not track such viewing in 100 percent of markets until earlier this year.)
Featuring a star-studded field that included Miami QB Cam Ward and Colorado’s two biggest stars — Heisman winner Travis Hunter and Deion Sanders’ as-yet-undrafted son Shedeur — viewership increased 11% from last year’s opening round (12.3M).
ESPN had the most-watched Draft telecast with a 3.0 rating (+5%) and 6.38 million viewers (+13%), followed by ABC at a 2.6 (+7%) and 4.74 million (+15%) and NFL Network at a 0.8 (+6%) and 2.08 million (+33%). It was the most-watched NFL Draft telecast on ESPN since 2021 (6.48M), ABC since 2020 (5.68M) and NFL Network since 2017, the final year before the league added a broadcast network simulcast (2.53M).
The three linear networks combined for a 6.3 and 13.2 million. While viewership was the second-highest on record for the draft, the household rating — which by definition does not include out-of-home viewing — ranks fifth behind 2018 (7.0), 2019 (7.0), 2020 (8.8) and 2021 (7.0).
It has now become commonplace for the Draft to draw what would qualify as championship-level audiences in other sports. Thursday’s opening round outdrew the recent final round of the Masters — the most-watched in seven years with nearly 13 million viewers — and all five games of last year’s Mavericks-Celtics NBA Finals.
