Viewers have flocked to NFL games this season, but the Pro Bowl is a step too far.
Sunday’s NFL Pro Bowl averaged 6.69 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and DisneyXD, the smallest audience for the game in 16 years — since ESPN averaged 5.96 million in 2006. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was the first Pro Bowl to take place opposite the Winter Olympics since that 2006 game.
Viewership declined 17% from the previous Pro Bowl two years ago (8.05M). Compared to last year’s Pro Bowl “Celebration” — a two-hour special in lieu of the actual game — viewership unsurprisingly surged 263% from 1.84 million.
In addition to the viewership low, the game’s 3.5 rating across ABC and ESPN would rank as the lowest since at least 1994, though that does not include the DisneyXD simulcast.
The Pro Bowl ranks second among the four most recent pro sports All-Star games, behind the MLB All-Star Game last July (8.24M) and ahead of the NBA All-Star Game last March (5.94M). It also comfortably surpassed the previous day’s NHL All-Star Game on ABC (1.15M).
Unlike the other All-Star games, which average substantially more viewers than the average regular season window, the Pro Bowl audience is less than half of the average NFL regular season audience of 17.1 million. Of the 118 regular season NFL windows, only two averaged fewer viewers — the early morning Jets-Falcons game from London in Week 5 (3.28M) and a postponed Raiders-Browns game on a Monday afternoon in Week 15 (5.86M), both of which aired solely on NFL Network.
While the Olympics is putting up historically low numbers, it still represents greater competition than the Pro Bowl usually faces. In the competing Sunday afternoon window, the Olympics combined for a 3.8 rating and 6.67 million viewers across NBC (2.6, 4.54M) and USA (1.2, 2.14M).
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 2.8]
