Nielsens: Olympics Ratings, EPL, College Hoops

While Olympics ratings are down in primetime, the late night window is up more than a third from four years ago. In other news, the Olympics have given a big boost to Premier League ratings, and ESPN’s college basketball suffered big declines opposite the Games this week.

Olympics Ratings: Late Night Coverage Up Big

Late night Winter Olympics coverage has averaged 9.4 million viewers across NBC and NBCSN through Wednesday, up 34% from 2014 on NBC alone (7.0M). It is the highest average on record for late night Winter Olympics coverage (dates back to 1987).

Premier League Ratings Get Big Boost From Olympics

Airing directly after Winter Olympics coverage, Monday’s Chelsea-West Brom English Premier League match had 605,000 viewers on NBCSN — up 180% from last year (West Ham-Chelsea: 216K) and the most-watched weekday EPL match, excluding holidays, since February 2014 (Arsenal-Man. Utd.: 711K). It was one of several matches to benefit from an Olympic lead-in.

The previous day, NBCSN drew a 0.47 rating (+104%) and 790,000 (+118%) for Newcastle-Manchester United and a 0.44 (+69%) and 701,000 (+70%) for Southampton-Liverpool.

As for NBC, Manchester City-Leicester City scored a 0.8 rating (+119%) and 1.1 million viewers (+84%) on Saturday. As previously reported, that was the most-watched EPL match in a year.

Big Declines For Big Monday, Super Tuesday, Against Olympics

Notre Dame-North Carolina had a 0.7 rating and 1.0 million viewers on ESPN’s Big Monday this week, down 29% in ratings and 27% in viewership from last year (Louisville-Syracuse: 0.95, 1.5M), but up a tick and 15% respectively from 2016 (N.C. State-UVA: 0.6, 940K).

In the nightcap, Baylor-Texas had a 0.44 (-61%) and 656,000 (-64%).

On Super Tuesday, Oklahoma-Texas Tech drew a 0.51 and 759,000 (-32%) and Virginia-Miami a 0.37 (-37%) and 567,000 (-38%).

[Numbers from NBC Sports PR 2.13, 2.15, Programming Insider 2.13, 2.14]