Sports Ratings Tracker

In Saturday’s CBS Sports Classic college basketball doubleheader, North Carolina-Ohio State averaged 1.50 million viewers and Kentucky-St. John’s 1.05 million — up 23 and 45 percent respectively from last year. While last year’s games aired opposite the NFL, this year’s aired early enough to avoid direct competition.

CBS also drew 1.04 million for Houston-Arkansas in the Never Forget Tribute Classic, which aired fully opposite the NFL.

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.

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.

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%.

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.