In a year of surging NFL ratings, the NFL Draft was a rare exception.
Thursday’s opening round of the NFL Draft averaged 10.03 million viewers across ESPN, ABC and NFL Network, marking the smallest audience for night one of the event since 2017 — the last time there was no broadcast network simulcast. Perhaps not coincidentally, it was the first Draft since 2017 in which a star quarterback was not the #1 pick (Travon Walker, a defensive end, was the first pick).
Viewership declined 22% from last year (12.8M) and 34% from the record-high of 15.26 million two years ago, when the Draft was one of the only live sporting events for weeks.
Despite the lower numbers, Thursday’s audience still ranks sixth-all time for the NFL Draft — trailing the previous four years and 2014 (12.37M). As one would expect, five of the top six audiences have come since the NFL added the broadcast network simulcast in 2017.
Compared to other sports, the Draft ranks on par with some of the year’s marquee championship events, narrowly trailing the final round of the Masters earlier this month (10.17M) and comfortably ahead of February’s Daytona 500 (8.87M). It also came reasonably close to Kansas-Villanova in the men’s Final Four (11.70M), though it was no match for the other two games (UNC-Duke: 17.66M; Kansas-UNC: 17.05M).
As usual, the Draft dominated its head-to-head with the NBA Playoffs, but the NBA provided considerably stronger competition than the last time the events coincided in 2019. TNT’s NBA doubleheader averaged 2.93 million viewers, up 63% from the network’s solo window opposite the draft in 2019 (Nuggets-Spurs: 1.80M). That does not include an additional game on NBA TV that chipped in 627,000.
ESPN aired the most-watched Draft telecast with a 2.4 rating and 4.45 million viewers, but that was down more than 30 percent from last year and its least-watched opening night of the event under the three-night format that began in 2010. ABC’s College Gameday-themed coverage followed at a 2.3 and 3.80 million, the smallest night one audience on broadcast television since FOX drew 3.74 million in 2018.
NFL Network brought up the rear with a 0.9 and 1.78 million, down from last year but its second-largest Draft audience in the past four years.
The three networks combined for a 3.2 rating in adults 18-49, a 2.3 in 18-34 and a 3.8 in 25-54, television’s highest rated program in those demos since college basketball’s national championship earlier this month.
[Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 4.28, ShowBuzz Daily 4.28]
