Premier League viewership continues to lag behind last year as the season reaches its conclusion.
Last Sunday’s Tottenham-Manchester United English Premier League match scored 568,000 viewers on NBCSN, down 6% from Manchester City-Arsenal last year (605K) and down 22% from Manchester United-Arsenal in 2015 (726K).
Spurs’ win was the top EPL telecast of an unusually busy week. NBCSN aired twelve telecast windows in week 37, only one of which posted an increase over last year — Sunderland-Swansea last Saturday (300K, +1%)
Every other window was either down or could not be compared to last year. In addition to Tottenham-Man. U., viewership declined for Manchester City-Leicester City (266K, -8%) and Stoke City-Arsenal (425K, -13%) on Saturday, West Ham-Liverpool (293K, -17%) on Sunday and Arsenal-Sunderland (173K -40%) on Tuesday.
Year-over-year comparisons were not available for Manchester-Southampton on Wednesday (155K), Chelsea-Watford on Monday (180K), Crystal Palace-Hull City on Sunday (109K), West Brom-Chelsea on May 12 (205K) or Southampton-Arsenal on May 10 (75K), as there were no comparable windows last year. Figures were not available for Leicester City-Tottenham on Thursday.
Declines have been the rule for the Premier League this season. Entering Championship Sunday, 97 of the 145 match windows that can be compared to last year have declined. That excludes three matches for which figures were not available.
(Wknd. numbers via ShowBuzz Daily 5.16, Nielsen)
