For the first time since the summer, a Premier League match attracted one million viewers in the United States.
Last Saturday’s West Brom/Manchester United English Premier League match had a 0.7 final rating and 1.1 million viewers on NBC, up 40% in ratings and 54% in viewership from Newcastle/Aston Villa last year (0.5, 723K) and the second-most watched match of the season.
Manchester United/Hull City in week three holds the top spot (1.2M).
The Red Devils’ win tied the highest rating of the season, matching Leicester City/Manchester City the previous week with a 0.72. It was also the third of the past four matches on NBC to cross the 900,000 viewer mark — no small feat after the network’s previous seven failed to do so — and just the second all season to earn at least one million viewers.
It was also a strong week on cable, as Manchester City/Arsenal scored a 0.5 and 741,000 on NBCSN Sunday morning — up 100% in ratings and 179% in viewership from Swansea/West Ham last year (0.2, 266K). Compared to Liverpool/Arsenal in the same window two years ago, ratings increased a tick but viewership dropped 10% from a 0.4 and 827,000.
The match delivered the second-largest cable audience of the season, narrowly behind Arsenal/Liverpool on opening weekend (745K). It tied the highest rating at a 0.46.
Wrapping up Sunday’s action, the concurrent Tottenham/Burnley match had just 93,000 viewers on CNBC, while Bournemouth/Southampton scored a 0.2 rating (flat) and 270,000 viewers (-15%) in the morning’s early window on NBCSN.
Returning to Saturday, Middlesbrough/Swansea (375K, -6%) and Sunderland/Watford (90K, -73%) sank in the mid-morning window, while Crystal Palace/Chelsea (334K) increased 37% over the last comparable match in 2014. Rounding out the week seventeen action, Monday’s Everton/Liverpool match fell 41% from year-ago coverage of Arsenal/Manchester City (474K).
