TV ratings for sports other than hockey

[Kirk Van Houten]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1858916305228665019

"SEC on ABC" sweeps second-straight CFB Saturday

For the second-straight week, and the sixth time in 12, ABC delivered the top audience in each of the major college football windows.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

ABC delivered the top game in each of Saturday’s main college football windows, marking the second-straight week — and the sixth time in 12 weeks this season — that the network has accomplished the feat. Most, but not all, of those windows have been part of its “SEC on ABC” package.

ABC has now won the primetime Saturday window ten times in 12 tries this season. As in primetime, ABC has now won the mid-afternoon window ten times in 12 weeks. The Longhorns’ win helped ABC win the Noon ET window for a seventh time in 12 weeks — meaning that in most weeks this season, ABC has topped the FOX “Big Noon Saturday” window head-to-head. It should be noted that ABC regularly puts its weakest game telecast in the Noon ET window, while FOX typically schedules its biggest game of the week in that slot. Overall, ABC has won three-quarters of the Saturday windows in which it has aired games (27 of 36). By comparison, FOX has won five windows (all at Noon), NBC three (one at 3:30 and two at 8:00) and CBS one (3:30).

In other week twelve action, ESPN bookended its quadrupleheader with 1.85 million for Clemson-Pittsburgh and 1.75 million for Kansas-BYU. The former game declined from Oklahoma-BYU last year (2.17M). In between, Boston College-SMU drew 957,000 and Arizona State-Kansas State 849,000, down 46 and 63 percent respectively from last year’s comparable windows (North Carolina-Clemson: 1.76M; Florida-Missouri: 2.27M).

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Chiefs-Bills scores milestone audience on CBS

The Chiefs-Bills rivalry delivered one of the top regular season NFL audiences in recent memory, with over 31 million tuning in on CBS.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Sunday’s Chiefs-Bills NFL national window averaged a 15.1 rating and more than 31 million viewers on CBS, trailing only Cowboys-Dolphins on Christmas Eve last year (31.52M) as the most-watched national window since 2007 — when CBS drew 33.8 million for Peyton Manning and the Colts against Tom Brady and the undefeated Patriots. (As with any viewership milestones of this sort, keep in mind that out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020.) The Bills’ win delivered the fourth-largest audience on record for the NFL national window and one of the ten-largest regular season audiences overall outside of Thanksgiving (records date back to 1988).

Earlier in the day, CBS averaged 19.8 million for the first half of its doubleheader — its most-watched early doubleheader window since 1992. Both CBS windows outperformed the primetime telecasts, with NBC’s Sunday Night Football at an 8.0 and 15.31 million for Bengals-Rams and ESPN’s Monday Night Football clocking in around 17 million for Texans-Cowboys (an exact figure for MNF will be provided when available). Both windows declined from last year, when SNF drew 18.45 million for Vikings-Broncos and MNF had a milestone audience of its own with 29.03 million for Eagles-Chiefs.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

https://x.com/i/web/status/1859361431587631452

 

[LadyStanley]

Week 16 game between Denver Broncos and Los Angeles Chargers flexed to Thursday night spot

The Los Angeles Chargers have played their way into another prime time appearance. Justin Herbert and company have had their Week 16 home game against the Denver Broncos flexed from Sunday, Dec. 22, to Thursday night, Dec. 19. Friday's announcement makes this the first time a game has been...

sports.yahoo.com

Flexing week 16 game. Minimum 28 day notice.

 

[End of Line]

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Truly intrigued to see the numbers of a not that relevant edition of "the game"

Buckeyes, Buffaloes and Bama top weekend CFB windows

Week thirteen of the college football season was a rare weekend not dominated by the SEC and ABC, with Indiana-Ohio State topping the charts.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

FOX also won the mid-afternoon window for the first time this season, as Colorado’s upset loss to Kansas drew 6.22 million — the most-watched Buffaloes game this season. The previous high was 5.67 million for their week two matchup with Nebraska on NBC (5.67M). ABC’s competing Kentucky-Texas game drew 4.47 million, its least-watched game in the mid-afternoon window since UCLA-LSU in week four (2.73M). This weekend was just the third this season in which ABC did not win the mid-afternoon window. Alabama-Oklahoma faced tougher-than-usual competition from Army-Notre Dame on NBC, which drew 4.1 million (including additional streaming data tracked by Adobe Analytics) — the largest audience to watch Notre Dame play against the armed forces since a 1996 game against Air Force.

Notre Dame’s win delivered the team’s largest NBC audience since their upset loss to Northern Illinois early in the season (4.3M). It was the first half of a rare — likely unprecedented — primetime NBC doubleheader, with USC-UCLA averaging 2.3 million in a late night window. NBC’s Big Ten coverage this season is averaging 3.6 million viewers (again including Adobe Analytics), up 45% from the same point last year. Shifting to cable, ESPN topped out at 2.53 million for the four-overtime Texas A&M-Auburn game Saturday night, preceded by BYU-Arizona state at 1.31 million and Wake Forest-Miami at 986,000.

 

[LadyStanley]

Giants-Cowboys Thanksgiving snoozer drew 38.5 million viewers, most of 2024

It was the perfect game for a Thanksgiving nap.

sports.yahoo.com

38.5m

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Thanksgiving weekend special:

Cowboys hit four-year low, Lions hit new high, on Thanksgiving

As is no surprise in the out-of-home era, the Cowboys' Thanksgiving game delivered a massive audience -- if less so than the past few years.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

With Chiefs involved, NFL up more than 40 percent on Black Friday

Ratings: Thanksgiving CBB and CFB, NBA

For the second-straight year, college basketball scored a viewership feast in a post-NFL Thanksgiving window. Plus: college football and NBA.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Thursday’s Giants-Cowboys NFL Thanksgiving Day game averaged 38.5 million viewers, marking the Cowboys’ least-watched game on the holiday since 2020 against Washington. The three intervening games each topped 40 million viewers, including the previous Thanksgiving matchup of the Giants and Cowboys two years ago — which drew an NFL regular season record 42.1 million. Earlier in the day, the Lions’ narrow win over the Bears averaged 37.4 million on CBS — the largest audience on record for a Lions game on the holiday. (Keep in mind the aforementioned out-of-home caveat). Viewership jumped 11% over Packers-Lions on FOX last year (33.70M). As is again typical for Thanksgiving, the game was the second-most watched of the NFL season. In the nightcap, NBC drew 24.18 million for Dolphins-Packers — down 2% from 49ers-Seahawks last year (24.78M).

In the second-annual Black Friday NFL game, Raiders-Chiefs averaged 13.51 million viewers across Amazon Prime Video and local broadcast affiliates in the participating markets — up 41% from Dolphins-Jets last year (9.61M). The Black Friday game is not part of the Amazon Thursday Night Football package and is excluded from the network’s TNF averages. TNF has averaged 13.25 million viewers so far this season, meaning that the Black Friday audience was slightly above the primetime average.

Leading directly out of the Bears-Lions NFL game, the Thanksgiving Day Illinois-Arkansas men’s college basketball game averaged 5.1 million viewers on CBS — marking the second-largest regular season college basketball audience since 2008. The only game with a larger audience over that span was Michigan State-Arizona on FOX last Thanksgiving, which aired in the same post-NFL window and averaged 5.2 million.

ESPN averaged a 0.30 rating and 655,000 viewers for the Thanksgiving night Memphis-Tulane college football game, down 70% in ratings and 71% in viewership from the Mississippi-Mississippi State “Egg Bowl” in the same window last year (1.0, 2.29M). The “Egg Bowl” aired on Black Friday this season in a mid-afternoon window on ABC. Figures for that game were not immediately available. Viewership also declined sharply from last year’s Tulane-Memphis game, which averaged 1.72 million, but that game aired in a Friday night October window sans any meaningful competition.

 

[End of Line]

CFB #’s seem to be held under lock and key right now

GT/UGA is rumored to be around 8.2mil

 

[End of Line]

Strong number but down compared to the previous 3 meetings

 

[End of Line]

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Prime time: Packers-Lions sets new Amazon-era TNF mark

The latest edition of NFL Thursday Night Football — a matchup of the then-11-1 Lions and 9-3 Packers — averaged 17.29 million viewers on Amazon Prime Video, the largest NFL audience ever on the streaming service, which is in its third season carrying games. Viewership jumped 61 percent from Patriots-Steelers in Week 14 last year (10.71M), the largest year-over-year increase for TNF since moving to Amazon. It delivered the largest Week 14 TNF audience since 2019 on FOX and NFL Network (Cowboys-Bears: 18.0M).

Not counting the Raiders-Chiefs Black Friday game, which is not part of the TNF package, TNF is now averaging 13.61 million viewers so far this season — up 9% from the same point last year (12.42M) and the highest 14-week average since 2019 (13.75M). At the same point in 2021, the final season TNF aired on broadcast television, the series was averaging 13.28 million.

Across all networks, the all-time record for TNF remains 21.8 million for a 2016 Cowboys-Vikings game on NBC and NFL Network. (That excludes Patriots-Giants in Week 17 of the 2007 season, a Saturday night contest in which New England clinched an undefeated regular season. Coverage was supposed to air exclusively on NFL Network as part of the TNF package, but was simulcast on CBS and NBC under congressional pressure and averaged a combined 33.4 million.)

 

[LadyStanley]

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

SEC lifts ABC to top conference title slate in decade, despite declines

The SEC lifted ABC to its top conference championship weekend in a decade, despite declines for all three of the network's Saturday games.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Saturday’s Georgia-Texas SEC Championship Game averaged 16.6 million viewers across ABC and ESPN, down 5% from Alabama-Georgia on CBS last year (17.52M) but still the fourth-largest audience on record for the game — behind last year, Alabama-Georgia in 2018 (17.57M) and Alabama-Florida in 2009 (17.57M). (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen estimates until 2020.) Overall, the SEC title game delivered the third-largest regular season college football audience ever on the ESPN family of networks, trailing only Michigan-Ohio State in 2006 (21.0M) and the same matchup a decade later (16.8M).

The Clemson-SMU ACC Championship followed with 6.0 million viewers, actually down from Florida State-Louisville last year (7.03M). That is despite a considerably stronger lead-in than last year, when coverage followed the American Athletic title game (1.89M). It was still the third-most watched ACC title game since 2015, behind last year and 2020. Rounding out the ABC slate, the Arizona State-Iowa State Big 12 Championship averaged 6.9 million — down from Texas-Oklahoma State last year (7.89M) and the lowest for the game since 2020 (Oklahoma-Iowa State: 3.03M).

Overall, ABC averaged 8.4 million viewers for a four-game conference championship slate — including Friday’s American Athletic title game — its highest such average in a decade.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Two season with Messi in the MLS zero MLS Cup games for Inter Miami and the league needs that

 

[Reaser]

Two season with Messi in the MLS zero MLS Cup games for Inter Miami and the league needs that

468k including FOXD, which is still down 47% from the 890k FOX/FOXD had last year.

 

[varsaku]

Two season with Messi in the MLS zero MLS Cup games for Inter Miami and the league needs that

MLS Cup going up against CFB was a terrible decision. That only turns away a lot of casual fans from tuning in. Also the long international break between round 1 and 2 killed any momentum and interest.

 

[joelef]

MLS Cup going up against CFB was a terrible decision. That only turns away a lot of casual fans from tuning in. Also the long international break between round 1 and 2 killed any momentum and interest.

Pathetic rayings

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

MLS Cup going up against CFB was a terrible decision. That only turns away a lot of casual fans from tuning in. Also the long international break between round 1 and 2 killed any momentum and interest.

They have this problem now

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Schedule change helps NBA Cup quarterfinals keep pace

A scheduling shift helped the NBA Cup quarterfinals pull nearly even with a year ago, with Mavericks-Thunder topping the charts.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

The NBA Cup quarterfinals averaged 1.36 million viewers across TNT and ESPN, off 1% from last year (1.38M). After a pair of last year’s games aired on a Monday night opposite the NFL, this year’s quarterfinals aired on Tuesday and Wednesday, avoiding football competition. Tuesday’s Mavericks-Thunder quarterfinal was the most-watched game of the round with 1.49 million across TNT and truTV, preceded by Magic-Bucks at 1.2 million — both up from last year’s Monday windows, Pelicans-Kings (741K) and Celtics-Pacers (1.1M). On Wednesday night, ESPN averaged 1.46 million for Hawks-Knicks and TNT 1.32 million for Warriors-Rockets, both down from the second quarterfinal night last year, when Knicks-Bucks drew 1.7 million and Suns-Lakers 2.0 million respectively.

 

[Reaser]

Did anyone actually watch the MLS Cup Final on Apple TV?

According to Nielsen, the impact of MLS Cup on Apple TV viewership was negligible leading us to ask whether anyone actually watched.

awfulannouncing.com

 

[Anisimovs AK]

Did anyone actually watch the MLS Cup Final on Apple TV?

According to Nielsen, the impact of MLS Cup on Apple TV viewership was negligible leading us to ask whether anyone actually watched.

awfulannouncing.com

It was funny a few years ago hearing MLS fans say that the league was gonna get a contract on par with the NHL. Then this streaming exclusive deal happened, most of us thinking the MLS took the bag at the expense of product exposure/awareness. Only to be told that the incredibly small ratings were a smoke screen cuz "most/half the audience is watching on Apple"



So for this article to come out what, 2-3 years after the deal was signed is some pretty damning evidence that we were right (and eddygee and the like were wrong, again)