A light schedule resulted in soft numbers for the Premier League. In other news, the NCAA wrestling championships benefited from a channel change on Thursday, and the fourth U.S. game in the World Baseball Classic posted a slight decline.
With Few Games on Schedule, Soft Week For Premier League
- Last Sunday’s Liverpool-Burnley English Premier League match scored a 0.3 final rating and 434,000 viewers on NBCSN, the top match of a week that was marked by FA Cup-related postponements. There were no matches in the comparable week last season, which consisted of weekday matches. The previous day, Everton-West Brom had 272,000 on NBCSN and Hull City-Swansea 25,000 on CNBC. Rounding out the week’s slate, Manchester-Stoke City drew 68,000 on March 8, down 68% from Liverpool-Manchester City last year (213K) and down 76% from West Ham-Chelsea in 2015 (283K).
Move From ESPNU to ESPN Boosts First Night of NCAA Wrestling
- The first night of the NCAA wrestling championships scored 303,000 viewers on ESPN Thursday night, up 153% from last year (120K) and up 178% from 2015 (109K), when coverage aired on ESPNU. The telecast drew the same number of viewers as the competing Jazz-Cavaliers NBA game on NBA TV, though that telecast was subject to local blackout.
Slight Dip For Fourth U.S. WBC Game
- The United States’ fourth game of the World Baseball Classic, a win over Venezuela, had 706,000 viewers on MLB Network Wednesday night — down 2% from the fourth U.S. game in 2013 against Puerto Rico (721K). Comparable figures in 2009 were not available. Wednesday’s game trailed the previous U.S. games against Canada (815K) and the Dominican Republic (977K).
