2020 Ratings Wrap: NFL dominates disastrous year

In a year that featured two full months without live sports — followed by an unprecedented crush of competing events — the NFL asserted its dominance as other leagues hit historic lows. [Click here to jump straight to the main list, here for the list with the NFL excluded, and here for a list of the most-watched events by sport and network.]

The NFL generated 82 of the 85 largest sports audiences in 2020, with the three exceptions being three college football bowl games last January — the New Year’s Day Rose Bowl and Citrus Bowl and the January 13 LSU-Clemson National Championship. The top non-football sporting event ranked 86th, Game 6 of the World Series.

Outside of the NFL, only seven sportscasts averaged at least ten million viewers in 2020* — and four of those seven took place in the first two weeks of the year, well before the wave of cancellations and postponements that altered the industry in March. After some initial strong audiences for events like the NFL Draft and the ESPN documentary “The Last Dance” in April and May, the return of sports in the summer and fall was marked by steep declines and record-low ratings.

Prior to this year, no NBA Finals or World Series game had ever averaged less than a 5.0 rating — this year, two World Series games and all six NBA Finals games fell below that mark. The final round of the Masters failed to crack even a 4.0 and averaged fewer viewers than the hiatus-era exhibition “The Match II: Champions For Charity.” The NHL avoided record-lows for its Stanley Cup Final only because the ratings were so poor in 2007 (a year in which a Cup Final game averaged fewer viewers than a rerun of Mama’s Family).

Ratings success stories were few and far between, but include the most-watched NWSL match ever (Houston-Chicago in the Challenge Cup: 653K), the most-watched WNBA regular season game since 2012 (Wings-Mercury: 599K) and the most-watched boxing card in two years (Top Rank in November: 1.76M). Even the leagues that set all-time lows this year had a few glimmers, including the most-watched MLB League Championship Series game in three years (Braves-Dodgers Game 7: 9.6M) and the NBA’s most-watched Opening Night in three years.

On balance, the year was a tremendous ratings bust. It bears noting that as of mid-March, there were no shortage of prognosticators suggesting that no sports would be played at all for the rest of the year. Given that, one imagines that record-low ratings are better than the alternative.

50 most-watched sports telecasts of 2020

50 most-watched sports telecasts of 2020, excluding the NFL

Pre-March dates in italics.

* Eight non-NFL events averaged 10 million viewers if one includes the ESPN app streaming audience for the Clemson-Notre Dame ACC Championship.
^ Turner Sports broadcast of “The Match II” aired on TNT, TBS, TruTV and HLN.