From Sports Media Watch, a one-stop page for sports ratings news.
With some of the league's marquee draws playing in games laden with playoff implications, NFL viewership is picking up steam as the season winds down.
NFL telecast windows were averaging 18.6 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics through Week 15 of the season, officially making this season the most-watched through 15 weeks since 1989.
That comes with the caveat that Nielsen did not track out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020 and did not do so in 100 percent of markets until February of this year.
The NBA Cup Final did well enough on Prime Video to edge last year's edition on ABC.
Tuesday's Knicks-Spurs NBA Cup Final averaged 3.07 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, up 3% from Bucks-Thunder on ABC last year (2.99M) -- an increase that is well within the margin that can be fully explained by Nielsen's methodological changes this year (specifically its expanded out-of-home viewing sample and shift to "Big Data + Panel" methodology).
But as with Saturday's semifinals, it is no small feat that viewership on Prime Video was close enough to last year on ABC for methodology to matter.
Viewership for the Heisman Trophy Presentation soared in the event's return to broadcast television.
Saturday's Heisman Trophy Presentation, in which Indiana QB Fernando Mendoza won the award, averaged 4.3 million viewers on ABC -- the largest audience for the event since 2012 (4.90M). It was the first Heisman to top the four million mark since 2013 (4.18M) and first to top even three million since 2015 (3.06M). While Nielsen did not track out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, that is unlikely to make a difference in comparison to years when viewership was in the 1-2 million range.
Despite a move from linear television to streaming, the NBA Cup semifinals posted a healthy increase over last year.
Saturday's NBA Cup semifinals averaged 1.67 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, up 14% from last year, when the games aired on ABC and TNT. The double-digit increase is a sharp turnaround from the quarterfinals, which were down 20%.
Spurs-Thunder led the way with 2.01 million, up 6% from Rockets-Thunder on ABC in the same window last year (1.89M).
In a bit of an upset, the Army-Navy Game fell well short of last year's milestone performance.
Saturday's Army-Navy Game averaged 7.84 million viewers on CBS, down 17% from last year's audience of 9.42 million, which was the largest for the game since 1989. Navy's win still delivered the game's second-largest audience since 2018, but that is almost certainly because of Nielsen's methodological changes this year, including an expansion of out-of-home viewing and shift to "Big Data + Panel" methodology.
Now exclusive to streaming for the first time, the start of the NBA Cup knockout round was no match for the first two years of the tournament.
The NBA Cup quarterfinals averaged 1.09 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, down 20% from last year on TNT Sports and ESPN (1.36M) and down 21% from the initial year of the in-season tournament two years ago (1.38M).
The decline is in line with other properties making their debut on Prime Video, from NASCAR this year (-16%) to NFL "Thursday Night Football" in 2022 (-28%).
Tuesday’s Jimmy V Classic men’s college basketball doubleheader averaged 1.1 million viewers on ESPN, up 36% from last year (791K) and the highest average for the event since 2020. (Nielsen methodological changes would not explain a year-over-year increase of that size, but could make a difference in comparisons to past years.)
Florida-UConn averaged 1.3 million to rank as the most-watched sportscast on a day that included NBA Cup quarterfinals on Amazon. Clemson-BYU led in with 906,000.
On Wednesday, the women’s Jimmy V Classic between Iowa and Iowa State averaged 1.0 million — the largest women’s audience of the season on any network.
The NFL kept up the momentum from its record-setting Thanksgiving in Week 14 of the season.
NFL telecast windows were averaging 18.7 million viewers through Week 14, per a combination of Nielsen and Adobe Analytics -- which the league says is the highest average at this point of any season since 1989. Viewership had been trending at a 10-year high prior to Thanksgiving.
Keep in mind that Nielsen did not track out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020 and did not do so in 100 percent of markets until earlier this year.
ESPN's eight-year run with Formula 1 ended in characteristic fashion, with yet more viewership milestones.
Last Sunday's season-ending Formula 1 Abu Dhabi Grand Prix averaged a 0.8 rating and 1.53 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest audience on record for the race, surpassing the previous high of 1.0 million set last year. While Nielsen has changed its methodology in just the past year -- expanding its out-of-home viewing sample to 100 percent of markets and adding "Big Data" from smart TVs and set-top boxes to its traditional panel -- that would not explain a 53 percent increase.
The SEC title game took rare second billing on championship weekend, but still commanded a large audience on ABC.
Saturday's Georgia-Alabama SEC Championship averaged 16.86 million viewers on ABC, up 2% from Georgia-Texas last year (16.63M), though that is well within the range that could be explained solely by Nielsen methodological changes. (Nielsen in February expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to 100 percent of markets and in September shifted to a new "Big Data + Panel" methodology that adds viewership from smart TVs and set-top boxes to its traditional panel.)
There was nothing at stake -- the teams merely swapped spots atop the rankings -- but a #1 vs. #2 Big Ten title game still delivered milestone viewership on FOX.
Saturday's Indiana-Ohio State Big Ten football championship averaged 18.33 million viewers on FOX, trailing only Michigan-Ohio State the previous week (18.42M) as the largest college football audience of the season. Three of the top four audiences belong to FOX, all involving Ohio State, as the Buckeyes' season opener against Texas ranks fourth (16.62M).
One week after playing in the two largest NFL audiences recorded by Nielsen, the Cowboys and Lions played in front of another milestone crowd.
The latest edition of NFL "Thursday Night Football" (Cowboys-Lions) averaged 19.39 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, a figure that includes local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets -- marking the largest "TNF" audience in the Amazon era, and the largest overall since Packers-Cardinals on FOX and NFL Network in the 2021 season.
A Thanksgiving viewership feast helped make Week 13 of the NFL season the league's most-watched on record.
NFL games averaged a Nielsen-estimated 27.0 million viewers in Week 13 of the season (including Adobe Analytics for NBC games), marking the highest average for any week of any NFL season in the Nielsen people meter era (dates back to 1988). Viewership increased 17 percent from Week 13 of last season, which also coincided with the Thanksgiving holiday.
The record audience was fueled by the league's Thanksgiving Day average of 44.7 million viewers, easily its highest ever on the holiday.
ABC put the wraps on a dominant, SEC-heavy regular season with a milestone Black Friday audience for Texas A&M-Texas.
The ESPN family of networks averaged 2.2 million viewers for college football games this season, including 6.9 million for games on ABC, marking the highest averages since 2011 and 2006, respectively. Those multi-year highs are unchanged even if one excludes the new "Big Data + Panel" methodology that Nielsen rolled out in September, ESPN said Friday.…
One does not generally associate the NBA with Thanksgiving, but the holiday week was the league's most-watched outside of Opening Night and Christmas in seven years.
NBA games averaged 2.19 million viewers during Thanksgiving week (including Adobe Analytics streaming viewership for NBC games), marking the most-watched week of any NBA season -- excluding Opening Week and the week of Christmas -- since November 2018. That was also Thanksgiving week, but it included only two games, one of which was LeBron James' first return to Cleveland as a member of the Lakers.
Just three years in, the NFL continues to grow its Black Friday audience and could be open to expanding its presence on the day.
Last week's Bears-Eagles Black Friday NFL game averaged 16.33 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, including local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets -- marking easily the most-watched of the league's three Black Friday games. Viewership officially increased 21% from Raiders-Chiefs last year (13.51M) and 70% from the inaugural Dolphins-Jets game in 2023 (9.61M).
The Big Ten is no match for the SEC when it comes to the television ratings, but the conference continues to boast the single biggest individual game in college football.
Saturday's Ohio State-Michigan college football game averaged 18.42 million viewers on FOX, marking easily the largest audience of the college football season. While the SEC on ABC has dominated college football viewership this season, FOX "Big Noon Saturday" owns the top two audiences -- with Ohio State-Michigan surpassing the previous high of 16.6 million for Texas-Ohio State in week one.
Direct lead-ins from the two most-watched NFL regular season games on record lifted college basketball to its two-largest regular season audiences in more than 30 years.
Last week's Thanksgiving night Duke-Arkansas men's college basketball game averaged a 2.4 rating and 6.81 million viewers on CBS, marking the largest regular season college basketball audience in 32 years -- since Purdue-Indiana drew 7.2 million on CBS in February 1993. The Blue Devils' comeback win peaked with 15.36…
The NFL Thanksgiving Day games delivered as expected, officially ranking as the league's two most-watched regular season games on record.
Last Thursday's Chiefs-Cowboys NFL Thanksgiving Day game averaged a 15.1 rating and 57.23 million viewers on CBS, marking the largest NFL regular season audience on record and an increase of 35 and 47 percent respectively over Giants-Cowboys on FOX last year (11.2, 38.84M).
The Cowboys' win, which peaked with more than 61 million viewers in the final quarter-hour, delivered the third-largest television audience of the year behind the Super Bowl in February (127.7M) and the Bills-Chiefs AFC Championship on CBS in January (57.7M).
Last week’s NBA “Coast to Coast Tuesday” slate — Magic-Sixers and Clippers-Lakers — averaged 2.7 million viewers on NBC and Peacock (across both Nielsen and Adobe Analytics), marking the largest group stage audience in the three years of the NBA Cup.
That comes with the caveat that no previous group stage telecast aired on broadcast television, much less in a regionalized format combining early and late windows. (Plus the standard caveats regarding Nielsen methodological changes.)
The following night, ESPN averaged 2.10 million for a Thanksgiving Eve tripleheader, up 54% from a doubleheader last year. Timberwolves-Thunder led the way with 2.43 million (+83%), followed by Rockets-Warriors at 2.03 million (+45%), with Pistons-Celtics leading off at 1.81 million.
Last week’s Panthers-49ers “Monday Night Football” game averaged 13.35 million viewers across the ESPN cable networks, down from Ravens-Chargers last year, which also aired on ABC (17.32M). Last week was the first Monday night of the season on which ABC did not carry a game.
ABC will skip three more Monday nights this season, including Giants-Patriots on the night this post is being written.
The much-prognosticated, highly-anticipated NFL Thanksgiving Day viewership figures are unlikely to surface before midweek.
Viewership figures for the NFL Thanksgiving Day games are expected to be reported Wednesday, when the official Nielsen numbers are released. In past years, it has been common for the networks to release fast-national viewership figures ahead of the official release, sometimes as soon as the day after the games -- especially in years when the numbers were expected to be record-setting.
Airing immediately after the Packers-Lions NFL Thanksgiving game, Thursday’s Michigan State-North Carolina men’s college basketball game averaged 5.49 million viewers on FOX, per Nielsen fast-nationals — the largest college basketball audience on the network, surpassing the previous record of 5.18 million set by Michigan State-Arizona in the same post-NFL Thanksgiving timeslot two years ago.
Keep in mind that Nielsen has this year expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to 100 percent of markets, which could account for the 6% increase over 2023. Nielsen has also shifted to a new “Big Data + Panel” methodology that combines viewership from smart TVs and set-top boxes with its traditional panel, but the fast-national figures do not include that data.
As one would expect, the NFL lead-in was the primary reason for the outsized audience. Viewership peaked at 13.41 million in the opening quarter-hour immediately following football.
Figures for the other Thanksgiving sporting events — the three NFL games and the primetime Duke-Arkansas college basketball game on CBS — were not immediately available as of Friday night.
Airing adjacent to the most-watched NFL singleheader in a decade, SailGP averaged 3.47 million viewers on CBS Sunday — making it the most-watched sailing event on record, surpassing the 1992 America’s Cup on ABC (3.27M). (As goes without saying, the 1992 figure does not include out-of-home viewing.)
That is also the largest audience for an NFL-adjacent sporting event on CBS this season, surpassing the 2.71 million who watched a Pro Bull Riders event on October 5.
The ESPN networks are averaging 460,000 viewers for college basketball games so far this season, up 113% from last year. Keep in mind that the early season schedule has included six more ESPN games and 13 fewer ESPNU games than a year ago, which would obviously skew the average.
On an individual network basis, ESPN is averaging 723,000 viewers — up 15% from last year. That includes an average of 1.7 million for last week’s Champions Classic, up 5% from last year (albeit well within the margin that could be explained entirely by Nielsen’s methodological changes this year.)
In particular, Kansas-Duke averaged a 1.0 and 1.87 million viewers, the largest audience of the young season thus far.
ESPN2 is averaging 266,000, up 23%.
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