At this point, anything with the NFL’s branding can draw a reliably strong audience — even a flag football “Pro Bowl.”
Sunday’s inaugural NFL “Pro Bowl Games” averaged a 3.4 rating and 6.28 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and DisneyXD, down just 5% in ratings and 6% in viewership from last year’s traditional Pro Bowl (3.6, 6.70M) and up dramatically from the virtual “Pro Bowl Celebration” two years ago (1.2, 1.84M).
The “Pro Bowl Games” averaged fewer viewers than last year’s all-star games in Major League Baseball (7.51M) and the NBA (6.284 to 6.282 million), with the caveat that those two events are more traditional versions of their respective sports. The “reimagined” Pro Bowl was a flag football game interspersed with skills challenges.
Even if down just slightly from last year, viewership was on the low end of the recent Pro Bowl trend. This year’s event tops only the virtual edition two years ago as the least-watched Pro Bowl since 2006 (5.96M). The event averaged 12.2 million viewers as recently as a decade ago and consistently topped the ten million mark from 2010-14.
One of the big differences between the Pro Bowl and the other All-Star games is that it is generally one of the least-watched NFL games of the season. The MLB and NBA All-Star games, by contrast, are typically the most-watched events in those sports outside of the playoffs. For the season, the “Pro Bowl Games” delivered the fourth-smallest NFL audience ahead of only three 9:30 AM ET games from London on NFL Network (Vikings-Saints: 4.62M; Giants-Packers: 5.22M; Seahawks-Buccaneers: 5.55M).
Of course, what is low for the NFL still exceeds other sports properties. The Pro Bowl delivered the largest sports audience of the weekend, comfortably ahead of the second-place NASCAR “Clash” at the Los Angeles Coliseum (2.0, 3.65M) and well ahead of Saturday’s NHL All-Star Game on ABC alone (0.79, 1.50M).
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 2.7)
