Sports Ratings Tracker

Last week’s ESPY Awards averaged a 1.4 rating and 2.6 million viewers on ABC, trailing only an audience of 2.64 million two years ago — when coverage was delayed due to a special report — as the largest audience for the event since 2019 (3.87M).

Viewership increased 17% over last year, when the event drew its smallest non-COVID audience since 2011 (2.18M).

With viewership also increasing for the Heisman Trophy Presentation (4.3M in its ABC debut) and NFL Honors (3.7M across NBC and NFL Network), the ESPYs did not gain any ground on the other major awards shows in sports.

As with all sports figures of late, note that historical comparisons are skewed by changes in Nielsen methodology, specifically its 2020 inclusion and later expansion of out-of-home viewing, plus its shift last year to a methodology that integrates “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes with its traditional panel.

Wednesday’s ESPY Awards averaged a 1.3 rating and 2.18 million viewers on ABC, topping only the COVID-affected years of 2020 (482K) and 2021 (1.24M) as the least-watched edition of the show since 2011.