From Sports Media Watch, a one-stop page for sports ratings news.
Sunday’s NCAA men’s basketball tournament Selection Show averaged 6.41 million viewers on CBS, up 12% from last year and the highest since 2014.
Leading in, the Purdue-Michigan Big Ten Tournament final averaged 4.72 million — up 4% from last year (Michigan-Wisconsin: 4.53M) and officially the largest audience ever for the event. The previous high was 4.65 million for Ohio State-Wisconsin in 2013, before Nielsen began including out-of-home viewing in its estimates. (It is almost certain that all things being equal, the 2013 game would still rank higher.)
It is also possible that viewership would trail last year all things being equal. Nielsen in September shifted to a new methodology that combines “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes with its traditional panel, generally resulting in higher viewership estimates for live sports. The 4% increase is within the margin that could be explained by that change.
Last weekend’s Red Wings-Devils NHL regular season game averaged 863,000 viewers on ESPN, the network’s most-watched game since 2021, excluding Opening Night and the Stadium Series. ESPN losing its Sunday night NBA games to NBC has opened up that window for NHL games (as will ESPN’s loss of Sunday night MLB starting next month).
(Note that changes in Nielsen methodology — specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to a new methodology that adds “Big Data” to its traditional panel — will generally skew comparisons to past years.)
ESPN also drew 808,000 for Sabres-Penguins last Thursday. On ABC last Saturday, Capitals-Bruins and Rangers-Devils both averaged 1.0 million. ESPN/ABC is now averaging 782,000 for NHL games this season (+21%).
Final round coverage of the PGA Tour Arnold Palmer Invitational averaged 3.3 million viewers on NBC across Nielsen (1.8 rating, 3.18M) and Adobe Analytics, marking the largest audience for the event since 2021.
(Note that changes in Nielsen methodology — specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to a new methodology that adds “Big Data” to its traditional panel — will generally skew comparisons to past years.)
Coverage of the Milan-Cortina Winter Paralympics averaged 1.4 million viewers across Nielsen (0.8 rating, 1.39M) and Adobe Analytics, marking the largest audience on record for a Winter Paralympics event. Keep in mind that it is only the second Winter Paralympics to air in primetime on broadcast television, joining Beijing four years ago.
The full first weekend of competition averaged 1.1 million, up 27% from Beijing.
Note that changes in Nielsen methodology — specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to a new methodology that adds “Big Data” to its traditional panel — will generally skew comparisons to four years ago.
Last Sunday’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Phoenix averaged a 1.5 rating and 2.84 million viewers on FS1, up a tick in ratings and 1% in viewership from last year (1.4, 2.82). That was the first increase for the Cup Series since the Daytona 500.
The corresponding Xfinity Series race had a 0.7 and 1.20 million on CW, flat and down 6%, respectively.
The latest edition of NBC’s NBA “Coast 2 Coast Tuesday” — Spurs-Celtics in most markets and Timberwolves-Lakers on the West Coast — averaged a combined 3.6 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, marking a season-high for NBC’s Tuesday regional window.
The Tuesday night window included a live cut-in to Miami Heat C Bam Adebayo scoring the final points of his 83-point effort — the second-highest point total in NBA history — but figures for that portion of the telecast were not immediately available.
Tuesday’s Italy-United States World Baseball Classic pool play game averaged 2.07 million viewers across FS1 (1.9M) and Fox Deportes, marking the largest audience for a WBC pool play game on FS1. Italy’s upset win, which peaked with 2.40 million in the 10 PM ET quarter-hour, more-than-doubled the average for U.S. pool play games on FS1 in 2023.
The four U.S. pool play games averaged 3.17 million viewers, nearly tripling the 2023 average of 1.12 million. Three of the four games aired on FOX, compared to one of four in 2023.
It remains to be seen how long the good times will last, but so far World Baseball Classic viewership is living up to the highest expectations.
Monday's United States-Mexico World Baseball Classic pool play game averaged 5.02 million viewers on FOX and Fox Deportes, marking the largest audience for any game in the history of the event (six editions dating back to 2006). The United States' win, which peaked with 5.65 million in the 9 PM ET quarter-hour, edged the previous high of 4.97 million for the 2023 Japan-United States final on FS1 and Fox Deportes.
Long one of the league's biggest television draws, the Warriors are not exactly moving the needle in Stephen Curry's absence.
Warriors-Thunder averaged a 1.1 rating and 1.90 million viewers on the latest edition of ABC's "NBA Saturday Primetime," topping only a January 2024 matchup against the Pelicans -- a non-exclusive Wednesday game added as filler programming due to the Hollywood writers and actors strikes -- as Golden State's least-watched ABC game since the network resumed airing the NBA in 2002 (123 total dating back to April 2008).
A pair of high-profile college basketball rivalry games delivered for ESPN and CBS over the weekend.
Saturday's North Carolina-Duke men's college basketball game averaged 3.43 million viewers on ESPN, up 14% from the rivals' second meeting of last season (3.0M) and the third-largest audience for the matchup since 2019 -- trailing only their first meeting this season, won by North Carolina at the buzzer (3.51M), and their second meeting in 2022, which marked Mike Krzyzewski's final home game.
Coming off of a dramatic World Series with global appeal, baseball has kept the good times going into the World Baseball Classic.
The first two United States games of the World Baseball Classic, against Brazil Friday night and Great Britain on Saturday, averaged 2.64 and 2.98 million viewers respectively on FOX -- both up considerably from the team's lone pool play game on FOX in 2023, a matchup against Great Britain that drew 1.48 million.…
UFC debuted on CBS with one of its better viewership figures in recent years.
Saturday's coverage of UFC 326 on CBS averaged 2.47 million viewers across a two-hour window that included prelims and portions of the main card, the largest UFC audience on linear TV since UFC on FOX 22 in December 2016 (3.18M). The one-hour portion that included the main card -- but not the main event -- averaged 2.81 million and peaked with 3.21 million.
Final round coverage of the Cognizant (formerly Honda) Classic averaged a Nielsen-only 1.4 rating and 2.51 million viewers on NBC last weekend, with that figure rising to 2.6 million including streaming data tracked by Adobe Analytics — the highest for the tournament since 2022.
Keep in mind that changes in Nielsen methodology (specifically the expansion of its out-of-home viewing sample and shift to “Big Data + Panel” methodology) generally skew comparisons to past years.
Last weekend’s IndyCar Series opener from St. Petersburg averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.40 million viewers on FOX, down slightly from last year’s opener, which marked IndyCar’s FOX debut (1.42M).
Last weekend’s NASCAR Cup Series race from Circuit of the Americas (Austin, TX) averaged a 2.1 rating and 3.93 million viewers on FOX, down 4% in ratings and 5% in viewership from last year (2.15, 4.1M). Tyler Reddick’s third-straight win, which peaked with 4.7 million viewers, was still the most-watched sporting event of the weekend.
Reddick has opened the season with three-straight wins, but the last two of those have declined year-over-year.
Shifting to the secondary O’Reilly Auto Parts Series, CW averaged a 0.6 and 1.07 million for its race last Saturday — down 3% and 4% respectively from last year (0.61, 1.1M).
Finally, Truck Series racing from St. Petersburg averaged a 0.6 and 1.0 million on FOX — the highest for a Truck Series race on the broadcast network since 2018.
It is still too early to tell whether the NHL will draft off of the momentum from the Olympic Games, but the early returns were promising.
NHL games averaged 603,000 viewers across the first eight telecasts on ABC, ESPN and TNT following the league's Olympic break, up 23% from the league's pre-Olympic average. Last season, NHL viewership rose 5% over the two months following the midseason "Four Nations Face-Off," an increase small enough to be explained fully by Nielsen methodological changes.
Not too long ago the marquee attraction in the NBA, Lakers-Warriors was the least-watched of the four NBA games on broadcast television last weekend.
Lakers-Warriors averaged a 1.2 rating and 2.18 million viewers on the latest edition of ABC's "NBA Saturday Primetime," marking the teams' least-watched matchup on ABC (15 total). Keep in mind that all-but-one of those meetings have come since LeBron James joined the Lakers in 2018 (the exception was the 17-win Lakers' upset of the 73-win Warriors in 2016).
The four-week PGA Tour “West Coast swing” averaged 2.70 million viewers on CBS, up 19% from last year and the highest average since 2021 (2.87M). (Keep in mind that prior season averages are based on Nielsen averages with smaller out-of-home viewership samples and zero “Big Data” from smart TVs and set-top boxes.)
Last weekend’s final round of the Genesis Invitational (Riviera) averaged a 1.8 rating and 3.27 million viewers on CBS, down from last year, when the tournament took place at Torrey Pines due to fires in usual host city Los Angeles (3.4M).
The previous week’s final round at Pebble Beach averaged a 1.7 and 3.30 million, also down slightly from last year (3.33M).
On Super Bowl Sunday, the final round at Phoenix was originally reported to have drawn a 1.9 and 3.78 million — a figure that has almost certainly been revised since, as Nielsen said last week that all of its February 8 data was affected by a data reporting error. Viewership was up 32% from last year before any revisions, and it was unlikely that any corrections would meaningfully change that margin.
Finally, as previously noted, the final round at Torrey Pines more-than-doubled last year, with the caveat that the tournament returned to a traditional Sunday finish for the first time since 2021.
Airing adjacent to the Winter Olympics, viewership for the second edition of NBC's "Sunday Night Basketball" improved on the first -- and hit a multi-year high.
Last weekend's Celtics-Lakers NBA "Sunday Night Basketball" game averaged a Nielsen-estimated 2.5 rating and 4.52 million viewers on NBC, with the latter figure rising to 5.6 million including a Telemundo simulcast and streaming audience measured by Adobe Analytics. Viewership increased dramatically from the equivalent Sunday night last year, when ESPN averaged Nielsen-only audiences of 1.73 million for Grizzlies-Cavaliers and 1.48 million for Thunder-Timberwolves.
Like the Paris Summer Olympics, viewership the Milan-Cortina Winter Games rebounded from the lows of the COVID era, thanks in part to compelling U.S. results and NBC's new approach to its primetime windows.
NBC's "primetime" coverage of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics averaged 23.5 million viewers across all platforms during the live, afternoon "Milan Prime" window and "Primetime in Milan" encore presentation, per a combination of final Nielsen data and Adobe Analytics -- up 96% from the combined primetime and live audience in Beijing four years ago (12.0M).
Michael Jordan returned to victory lane for a second-straight week and the third time in a year, but there is no sign yet that his run of success is impacting the ratings.
Sunday's NASCAR Cup Series race from Atlanta averaged a 2.4 rating and 4.49 million viewers on FOX, flat in ratings and down 2% in viewership from last year (2.4, 4.59M). If narrowly, it was the least-watched edition of the race in the three years since it moved into the weekend after Daytona.
A top-three, late-season, non-conference matchup of two iconic programs delivered one of ESPN's better college basketball audiences.
Saturday's Michigan-Duke men's college basketball game averaged a 2.0 rating and 4.32 million viewers on ESPN, nearly doubling Kentucky-Alabama last year (2.17M) and marking the largest audience for a men's game on the ESPN networks since Duke-North Carolina in 2019 -- Zion Williamson's much-hyped first game against the Tar Heels (4.34M). It also ranks among the ten most-watched men's games ever on ESPN (seventh).
A memorable finish to the Olympic hockey tournament delivered a milestone audience for NBC.
Sunday's United States-Canada Olympic men's hockey gold medal game averaged 18.6 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, per a combination of final Nielsen data and Adobe Analytics -- the largest hockey audience of any kind since the 2010 Olympic gold medal game between the same two teams, which aired in a mid-afternoon window (27.6M).
Viewership doubled the previous high over that span, 9.3 million for last year's "Four Nations Face-Off" final between the same two teams.
Benefiting from the same broadcast network exposure and Winter Olympics lead-in that boosted Sunday's NBA All-Star Game, NBA All-Star Saturday also rebounded in the ratings.
Last weekend's NBA All-Star Saturday averaged a 2.2 rating and 4.42 million viewers on NBC, with the latter figure rising to 5.36 million including a Spanish-language broadcast on Telemundo and streaming viewership measured by Adobe Analytics -- the largest audience for the annual skills competition since 2017 (5.64M).
Viewership increased 58% from last year's Nielsen-only TNT audience of 3.39 million.
With the United States women delivering a strong night at the rink, NBC saw one of its stronger audiences of the Olympic Games.
Thursday's "primetime" coverage of the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics averaged a combined 26.7 million viewers on the NBC family of networks across a live daytime airing and primetime replay, per a combination of Nielsen preliminary data and Adobe Analytics -- the third-largest audience of the Games, behind last Sunday (27.8M) and Super Bowl Sunday coverage that the network says grossed 42 million.
Leave a Reply