Sports Ratings Tracker

Saturday’s NWSL Championship (Gotham FC-Washington) averaged 1.18 million viewers on CBS, marking the largest audience on record for a traditional NWSL match. (Last year’s NWSL Skills Challenge averaged 1.54 million in a tape-delayed, NFL-adjacent window.)

Viewership increased 22% from the previous record set by last year’s final, an increase large enough as to not be fully attributable to Nielsen’s methodological changes this year.

Sunday’s Chiefs-Bills NFL national window averaged 30.84 million viewers on CBS, marking the second-largest audience of the NFL season, behind only the Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch on FOX in Week 2.

Coverage featuring Colts-Steelers led-in with 18.56 million.

Games 1 and 2 of the Dodgers-Blue Jays World Series averaged 7.0 and 6.6 million viewers respectively on Canada’s Rogers SportsNet, marking the two most-watched Blue Jays games on record, according to the network’s reporter Hazel Mae.

American figures for Games 1 and 2 on FOX will not be available until Tuesday at the earliest.

Thursday’s ESPN NBA doubleheader averaged 2.07 million viewers, up 53% from the opening Thursday of last season on TNT. That is a bigger year-over-year increase than ESPN had for its season-opening doubleheader the previous night (2.33M, +44%).

While Nielsen this year has expanded its out-of-home viewing sample and shifted to a new “Big Data + Panel” methodology, those changes would not fully explain an increase of that size.

The overtime Nuggets-Warriors game led the way with 2.23 million viewers, up 79% from Thunder-Nuggets on TNT last year (1.25M). The double-overtime Thunder-Pacers NBA Finals rematch led in with 1.98 million, up 37% from last year’s Spurs-Mavericks game (1.45M). (Thunder-Pacers had the bigger peak audience, 2.66 million.)

Neither game hit a multi-year high, as Suns-Lakers drew 2.30 million and Sixers-Bucks 2.04 million on TNT the comparable night in 2023.

TNT Sports averaged 372,000 for its season-opening NHL doubleheader on Wednesday, specifically 516,000 for Bruins-Capitals and 240,000 for Kings-Golden Knights — up 10% and down 24% respectively from last year. The Kings game overlapped with the competing Dodgers game on TBS (3.7M).

ABC led a fifth-straight college football weekend as Vanderbilt-Alabama topped the week six charts with 6.41 million viewers. MIami-Florida State placed second with 6.03 million.

For more, see the college football ratings page.

CBS averaged a 9.1 rating and 19.58 million viewers for Sunday’s NFL singleheader (mostly Broncos-Eagles), up 17% from last year and marking the network’s most-watched singleheader since 2013.

Keep in mind that Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, did not do so in 100% of markets until February, and as of September now includes “Big Data” from set-top boxes and smart TVs.

Tuesday’s Fever-Aces WNBA semifinal Game 2 averaged 1.7 million viewers on ESPN, marking the largest second round playoff audience since Comets-Sparks Game 2 on NBC in the 2000 Western Conference Finals, also the most-watched ever on the ESPN family of networks.

The previous second round high on ESPN was set by Game 1 of the series last Sunday, which drew 1.4 million.

For more on the second round numbers, see this article.

ABC took the top two spots in week four of the college football season as Florida-Miami averaged 6.46 million viewers and Auburn-Oklahoma drew 6.12 million. CBS had its most-watched game of the season with 5.30 million for Michigan-Nebraska.

For a chart featuring most of last week’s nationally televised game windows, see the College Football TV Ratings page.

The Cowboys and Chiefs played in the two most-watched game windows of Week 3 of the NFL season, with the NFL national window (mostly Cowboys-Bears) taking the top spot with 25.47 million viewers — actually down from last year, despite Nielsen’s methodological changes.

Chiefs-Giants ranked a close second with 25.3 million (a combination of Nielsen and Adobe Analytics).

Monday Night Football (Lions-Ravens) also topped the 20 million mark with 22.8 million.

For more on the NFL Week 3 numbers, see this article.

The latest edition of NFL Thursday Night Football (Dolphins-Bills) averaged 16.45 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, per Nielsen’s “Big Data + Panel” measurement. As it is Nielsen policy to compare “Big Data + Panel” to last year’s panel-only numbers, viewership officially increased 23% over Patriots-Jets last year (13.37M). But compared to last year’s Patriots-Jets “Big Data” figure, which Amazon reported at the time, viewership increased 11% from 14.80 million.

Officially, Dolphins-Bills ranks as the third-most watched TNF game since Amazon acquired rights; using last year’s “Big Data” figures, it ranks fourth.

Continuing a trend that has lasted throughout Amazon’s TNF tenure, viewership continues to trend younger than on the traditional linear networks. Through two weeks, TNF is averaging 3.64 million viewers among adults 18-34 and 8.32 million among adults 18-49, both ranking as the highest of any NFL rightsholder, according to Amazon. The median age of 47.4 remains sharply lower than that of the linear broadcasters (55).

Last weekend’s Georgia-Tennessee college football game averaged 12.58 million viewers on ABC, marking the second-largest audience of the season, behind only Texas-Ohio State on FOX in week one (16.62M). With the caveat that Nielsen has changed its methodology in the past year, the Bulldogs’ win ranks as the fourth-most watched regular season game on ABC in the past decade.

ABC also drew 7.64 million for Florida-LSU in primetime and 4.51 million for Wisconsin-Alabama in the Noon ET window. ESPN actually won the Noon window with 4.76 million for Georgia Tech’s upset of Clemson.

Rounding out the top five last weekend, NBC averaged 6.2 million for Texas A&M-Notre Dame, a figure that combines Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.

For a list of select college football viewership from last weekend, see this page.

Tuesday’s Dream-Fever first round WNBA playoff Game 2 averaged 1.5 million viewers on ESPN, down 40% from Fever-Sun Game 2 last year, which featured Caitlin Clark (2.5M), but still the fifth-largest WNBA playoff audience since 2000. Viewership trailed only the two Fever-Sun games last year (Game 1 averaged 1.8M) and Games 4 and 5 of the WNBA Finals (1.7 and 2.2M respectively).

Game 1 of the series averaged 951,000 on ABC opposite NFL games last Sunday, down 48% from last year’s Fever-Sun Game 1.

As for the rest of the postseason games, Aces-Storm Game 2 ranks as the most-watched of the non-Fever games with 1.1 million Tuesday night. That followed the aforementioned Dream-Fever game. Viewership increased over Storm-Aces in the same Tuesday night window last year (988K), but that game did not have a lead-in from the Fever. (The equivalent post-Fever window last year was Mercury-Lynx on a Wednesday night, which drew 1.22 million.)

As with all sports viewership figures of late, keep in mind that Nielsen has introduced a new methodology (“Big Data + Panel”) that adds data from smart TVs and set-top boxes to the traditional panel. In addition, Nielsen expanded its out-of-home viewing measure to 100 percent of markets earlier this year, up from two-thirds previously.

Sunday’s NFL singleheader on CBS, featuring Bills-Jets and Rams-Titans, averaged a 6.9 rating and 15.0 million viewers — down sharply from a 9.1 and 18.8 million on FOX last year. (As with all comparisons this season, this year’s numbers are Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” and last year’s are “panel only.”)

Saturday’s USF-Miami college football game averaged 720,000 viewers on CW (“Big Data + Panel”). Despite marking the first ranked vs. ranked matchup in network history, it was well short of the network’s official Nielsen record of 1.33 million (panel-only) for South Alabama-Florida State two years ago.

Viewership was also shy of the prior week’s Baylor-SMU game, which drew 1.13 million.

Viewership was impacted by a nearly two-hour weather delay. Per Nielsen panel-only data, the game was averaging nearly one million viewers as of 5:30 PM ET and lost 1/3 of its audience after the delay.

Sunday’s Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch averaged 33.8 million viewers on FOX, marking the largest Nielsen-measured television audience on any network since their Super Bowl meeting in February.

The Eagles’ win delivered the largest September or October NFL audience on record, and the largest regular season Sunday audience ever on FOX — though between Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” metric and its February expansion of out-of-home viewing, any comparisons to past years are apples-to-oranges.

Earlier in the day, regional action featuring Giants-Cowboys averaged 20.72 million — bringing the full doubleheader to 26.88 million. That is the largest audience on record for an NFL doubleheader on any network, again with the caveats regarding changes in Nielsen methodology.

FOX is now averaging 23.83 million viewers for the season, which is the network’s best-two week average since acquiring rights (once again, with caveats regarding changes in Nielsen methodology).

ESPN college volleyball matches are averaging 378,000 viewers so far this season, up 186% from last year, with the standard caveats regarding Nielsen methodological changes.

This past week, Louisville-Texas averaged 377,000 viewers on Wednesday night and Stanford-Missouri drew 363,000 on Tuesday, marking the fourth and fifth-most watched matches ever on the ESPN cable networks.

Four of the top five ESPN matches have come this season, with Stanford-Nebraska and Florida-Pittsburgh averaging 596,000 and 525,000 viewers respectively on August 24 — placing first and second.

In addition, ABC averaged 1.2 million for Nebraska-Kentucky on August 31.

All figures, including those from August, are from the new Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” methodology that combines the existing Nielsen panel with smart TV and set-top box data, generally resulting in larger audiences than the previous panel-only metric.

The season debut of “Monday Night Football” (Vikings-Bears) averaged 22.1 million across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, trailing only Bills-Jets in 2023 (22.6M, panel only) as the most-watched Week 1 edition of “MNF” since ESPN began airing the series. Keep in mind that in most of those years, not only did the Week 1 games air solely on cable, but ESPN typically carried a doubleheader that required unusual start times for both games.

For the full Week 1 NFL ratings wrap, see this article.

The full US Open tennis tournament averaged 1.1 million viewers on the ESPN networks, up 39% from last year and the highest since Serena Williams last played the event in 2022. Keep in mind that between Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” methodology and its February expansion of out of-home viewing, this year’s figures have a built-in advantage over past years.

For more on the numbers, see this article.

WNBA games averaged 1.3 million viewers across ESPN and ABC during the 2025 regular season, up 6% from last year and the most-watched WNBA season ever on the ESPN networks. Keep in mind that the season average is based on the new Nielsen “Big Data + Panel” metric, which could potentially account for all of the year-over-year gain.

The ESPN networks accounted for eight of the ten most-watched WNBA games this season.

FOX averaged 4.28 million viewers for Iowa State-Iowa on “Big Noon Saturday,” unsurprisingly down from Texas-Michigan last year (9.2M), followed by 2.7 million for Delaware-Colorado.

Fueled by the previous week’s Texas-Ohio State game (16.6M), the FOX “Big Noon” window is now averaging 10.4 million viewers — up 52% from the same point last year. Keep in mind that between Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” methodology and offseason expansion of out-of-home viewing, this season’s viewership figures have built-in advantages over all previous years.

Michigan-Oklahoma averaged 9.7 million viewers on the latest edition of ABC’s “Saturday Night Football,” the network’s most-watched week two game since 2006 and the fifth-largest audience of the young season. Keep in mind that between Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” methodology and offseason expansion of out-of-home viewing, this season’s viewership figures have built-in advantages over all previous years.

ABC also averaged 4.8 million for Mississippi-Kentucky and 3.7 million for San Jose State-Texas. The network is averaging 7.5 million viewers through two weeks, the highest at this point of the season since 2006, with the above caveats regarding Nielsen methodologies.

The ESPN cable networks topped out at 2.2 million for Illinois-Duke, followed by 1.8 million for Kansas-Missouri. The ESPN networks are averaging 3.2 million, the highest through two weeks since 2009, again with caveats regarding changes in Nielsen measurement.

The latest edition of ESPN’s “College Gameday” averaged 2.6 million viewers across ESPN and ESPNU, the second-largest audience ever for the show — with the caveat that Nielsen’s “Big Data” and out-of-home metrics are likely the only reason why viewership surpassed the previous #2 show, a November 2007 edition from the site of a Missouri-Kansas game (2.62M).

During the 11 AM ET hour, “Gameday” averaged 3.3 million — surpassing “Big Noon Kickoff” on FOX at 2.58 million.

Sunday’s Carlos Alcaraz-Jannik Sinner US Open men’s final averaged 3.0 million viewers on ABC, marking the largest audience for the event in a decade and an 82% increase over last year’s final between Sinner and Taylor Fritz.

The previous day’s Aryna Sabalenka-Amanda Anisimova women’s final averaged 2.4 million, up 50% from Sabalenka-Jessica Pegula a year ago.

Keep in mind that Nielsen as of last week began using a new methodology that combines its existing panel with “Big Data” for set-top boxes and smart TVs, a figure that will generally be higher than the panel-only numbers that were the currency previously.

Having said that, the year-over-year gains were so substantial that it is highly likely viewership would have been up considerably all things being equal.

(Correction 9/10: The men’s final had 3.0 million, not 3.2 million. The 3.2 million figure is the decade-ago 2015 figure.)