TV ratings for sports other than hockey

[Kirk Van Houten]

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/20...ed-raiders-chiefs-giants-eagles-ravens-49ers/

Monday’s Raiders-Chiefs NFL Christmas Day game averaged a combined 29.17 million viewers across CBS (28.28M) and Nickelodeon (893K), per Nielsen fast-nationals — the largest Christmas Day NFL audience since Bengals-Vikings on ABC in 1989 (33.06M), pending full results from Christmas Day. The Raiders’ upset win, which peaked with 37.16 million, increased 13% from Packers-Dolphins on FOX in the same window last year (25.92M). In other Christmas action, the Ravens-49ers Monday Night Football game averaged 27.24 million across ABC and ESPN Deportes — up 59% from Buccaneers-Cardinals on NBC’s Sunday Night Football last Christmas (17.15M) and the NFL’s fourth-largest Christmas audience.

Raiders-Chiefs delivered the fourth-largest audience of the NFL season — trailing the two Thanksgiving afternoon games (Washington-Dallas: 41.76M; Lions-Packers: 33.70M) and the Week 12 national window three days later (mostly Bills-Eagles: 30.90M).

On the NFL’s last Christmas before the out-of-home era — 2017 — the most-watched game was Steelers-Texans with just shy of 17 million viewers. In 2020 — technically part of the out-of-home era, but also a year in which family gatherings were actively discouraged — the NFL’s lone Christmas game averaged 20.94 million. In the three years since 2020, the NFL has delivered four of its six largest Christmas Day audiences, and that is with results still to come for Monday’s Giants-Eagles game on FOX.

 

[CokenoPepsi]

What's the out of home era?

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Huge.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

What's the out of home era?

Pretty much the world we live in right now were Nielsen counts the out of home viewers meanning for example people that watch a football game on a friends house on Thanksgiving.

 

[oknazevad]

So basically before a revision to their statistical framework a couple of years ago, Nielsen notably undercounted the viewership because they didn't really account for people watching in groups at friends' or family's homes during holidays or such. Just one of the many ways that Nielsen's models are still stuck far too much in the one-tv-per-household idea from the 1950s.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

So basically before a revision to their statistical framework a couple of years ago, Nielsen notably undercounted the viewership because they didn't really account for people watching in groups at friends' or family's homes during holidays or such. Just one of the many ways that Nielsen's models are still stuck far too much in the one-tv-per-household idea from the 1950s.

Pretty much and in 2020/2021 they started this out of home era but they still undercounted by a good margin and some events got corrected later but not that many

NBA Christmas viewership sacked by NFL

Stronger NFL competition and fewer ABC games combined to sack NBA Christmas viewership for a significant loss.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Viewership declined for at least four of the five NBA Christmas Day windows. The featured Celtics-Lakers game was the most-watched of the day with an average of 5.0 million across ABC (3.31M) and ESPN (1.69M), down 18% from Bucks-Celtics in the same window last year (6.08M). Shifting to the ESPN portion of the schedule, Bucks-Knicks led the way with 2.49 million across ESPN and ESPN2 — down 39% from Sixers-Knicks on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 last year (4.07M). The late night Mavericks-Suns game averaged 1.47 million on ESPN, down 42% from Suns-Nuggets last year on ABC and ESPN (1.2, 2.52M). Bringing up the rear, Sixers-Heat averaged just 1.30 million on ESPN and ESPN2, down a whopping 73% from Grizzlies-Warriors on ABC and ESPN a year ago (4.75M). Complete figures were not immediately available for Warriors-Nuggets. This post will be updated when those numbers come in.

The NFL couldn't destroy black friday for college football but they're doing it to the NBA at least for next year Adam Silver can rest easy that it falls on wednesday but on 2025...

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Peacock NFL game averages north of seven million viewers

The first NFL game on Peacock averaged a reasonably solid audience, as Bills-Chargers averaged north of seven million viewers.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Saturday’s Bills-Chargers NFL regular season game averaged 7.2 million viewers on the NBC streaming service Peacock, per Nielsen fast-nationals, a figure that includes over-the-air simulcast viewership on the NBC affiliates in Buffalo and Los Angeles. Per a source, those simulcasts averaged 1.12 million viewers (746K in LA and 374,000 in Buffalo). That would leave the Peacock-only audience at around 6.1 million.

Bills-Chargers delivered the fifth-smallest Nielsen-measured audience of the NFL season, ahead of only three early morning games from London and a Saints-Panthers Monday Night Football game that overlapped with competing coverage on ABC. It averaged fewer viewers than any Thursday Night Football game on Amazon Prime since Week 10 of last season, when Falcons-Panthers averaged 6.8 million.

Peacock is one of the smallest platforms to ever carry an NFL game. At the most recent count, the service had 28 million subscribers. (That figure is likely to have increased in advance of Saturday’s game.)

Their wild card game is very likely going to be the least Playoffs game watched ever (on a plataform with ratings of course).

 

[End of Line]

@Kirk Van Houten figured you’d enjoy this infographic

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

View attachment 791840

@Kirk Van Houten figured you’d enjoy this infographic

I do it's been a year full of big football ratings it's going to be really intresting to see how the expanded CFP and the superconferences affect CFB. We're probably never seeing for a while a regular season game with 19M.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Cotton Bowl most-watched in a decade, excluding playoff years

Friday’s Missouri-Ohio State Cotton Bowl averaged 9.6 million viewers on ESPN, per Nielsen fast-nationals — the game’s largest audience in a decade, excluding years when it served as a College Football Playoff semifinal. The previous high was 9.47 million for Ohio State-USC in 2017. (Keep in mind Nielsen did not begin including out-of-home viewing in its national estimates until 2020.) The Tigers’ win, which peaked with 10.7 million viewers, ranks among the ten most-watched Cotton Bowl games in the past 30 years. Viewership increased 11% from last year’s Tennessee-Clemson Orange Bowl in the same Friday night window (8.59M) and more-than-doubled last year’s Cotton Bowl, which aired on a Monday afternoon leading into the Rose Bowl (Tulane-USC: 4.17M).

Over 10 million for Georgia's 60-point rout of FSU

Georgia's 60-point Orange Bowl rout of Florida State still delivered the game's largest TV audience (excluding playoff years) since 2017.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Saturday’s Georgia-Florida State Orange Bowl averaged 10.3 million viewers on ESPN, per Nielsen fast-nationals, marking the largest audience for the game since 2017 (Wisconsin-Miami: 11.73M), excluding years in which it served as a College Football Playoff semifinal. Georgia’s bowl-record 60-point rout, which peaked with 11.6 million viewers, delivered the largest audience of the bowl season thus far. For the season, it third among college football games behind the Alabama-Georgia SEC Championship on CBS (17.52M) and Ohio State-Michigan on FOX (19.07M).

Earlier Saturday, the Mississippi-Penn State Peach Bowl averaged 7.7 million — up slightly from the last non-semifinal edition two years ago (7.65M). Mississippi’s win, which peaked with 8.6 million viewers, tops only the 2021 game as the least-watched Peach Bowl since 2015 (5.60M). Not surprisingly, every other Peach Bowl over that span has been a semifinal, led into a semifinal, or aired in primetime.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Lions-Cowboys thriller latest MNF game with historic audience

A special Saturday night edition of NFL Monday Night Football (Lions-Cowboys) averaged 25.66 million viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, per Nielsen fast-nationals — trailing only Eagles-Chiefs in Week 10 (28.96M) and Ravens-49ers on Christmas Day (27.61M) as the largest regular season MNF audience since 1997 (Broncos-49ers: 26.95M). (Keep in mind that Nielsen did not include out-of-home viewing in its national estimates prior to 2020.)

Including the Cowboys-Buccaneers Wild Card playoff game last January, four MNF games averaged north of 25 million viewers in 2023 — the most for the package in a single calendar year since 1996 (five). The game also ranks as the most-watched regular season game on a Saturday since Patriots-Giants in 2007 (excluding Christmas). New England won the 2007 game to clinch an undefeated season in front of a television audience of 33.39 million across CBS, NBC and NFL Network.

Monday Night Football is now averaging 17.1 million viewers this season, up a third from last year and the first season in 20 years to average an audience of that size. Keep in mind this year’s average includes three weeks in which ABC and ESPN cannibalized each other with competing doubleheaders.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Alabama v Michigan did a huge number as expected

 

[LadyStanley]

https://sports.yahoo.com/michigans-rose-bowl-win-over-alabama-is-most-watched-non-nfl-sporting-event-since-2018-032148762.html

More on Rose Bowl. Biggest non NFL event since 2018

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

2023 numbers are going to be all NFL with some CFB games.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

2023 ratings wrap: NFL sweeps top 50

The NFL status as the most-watched sports league reached a new level in 2023 as the league accounted for the industry's top 50 U.S. audiences.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

A clean sweep of the top 50 in sports.



Nearly a clean sweep of the top 100 in general. What a year for football and the NFL and it seems like in 2024 it's going to reach both clean sweeps.

 

[LadyStanley]

Michigan's victory over Washington draws biggest national championship TV audience since 2020

Michigan played in the three most-watched games of the 2023 season.

sports.yahoo.com

CFP championship largest viewing audience since 2020

 

[joelef]

Michigan's victory over Washington draws biggest national championship TV audience since 2020

Michigan played in the three most-watched games of the 2023 season.

sports.yahoo.com

CFP championship largest viewing audience since 2020

I was told bu all the pearl clenchers college football was dying because of transfer portal and nil ?

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

We'll see the numbers in the first season after the huge movement of schools and the new CFP. I think the season overall will be fine but numbers like 19M for a Michigan v Ohio State will be more and more unlikely

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

In total 7% up for the NFL in the 2023 season.

 

[oknazevad]

Curious if the mat big plus number for "ESPN" accounts for the fact that almost all games were simulcast on ABC. That is, is that the combined number.

And how much would you bet that they're going to keep MNF on ABC next year.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Curious if the mat big plus number for "ESPN" accounts for the fact that almost all games were simulcast on ABC. That is, is that the combined number.

And how much would you bet that they're going to keep MNF on ABC next year.

The strike and the lack of the usual shows really helped the NFL. I think they can keep the "megacast" every monday. In fact the NFL seems to like the idea of having more MNF doubleheaders with one game on each network so we can go that from 3 to 6 next season easily.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Peacock NFL playoff game averages 23 million viewers

The Peacock NFL playoff game averaged 23 million viewers according to NBC, up from last year's comparable game on regular television.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

The first NFL playoff game to air exclusively on a streaming service delivered a linear-sized audience, according to NBC. Saturday’s Dolphins-Chiefs AFC Wild Card Game averaged 23.0 million viewers across Peacock and the NBC affiliates in Miami and Kansas City, per Nielsen fast-nationals — up 6% from Chargers-Jaguars on NBC last year (21.8 million across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics) and the most-streamed live event ever in the United States. In an unusual, perhaps even unprecedented move, NBC announced the numbers on-air during the Rams-Lions playoff game Sunday night. To put the number in perspective, the most-watched Thursday Night Football game on Amazon Prime — Seahawks-Cowboys in November — averaged 15.26 million. Peacock’s first NFL exclusive, Bills-Chargers in December, averaged 7.33 million.

It was not immediately clear how many viewers the local over-the-air simulcasts contributed to the overall audience. Per NBC, the game averaged a 45.1 rating and whopping 74 share on KSHB in Kansas City and a 14.5/41 on WTVJ in Miami.

Earlier in the day, the Texans’ rout of the Browns averaged 29.0 million across NBC, Telemundo and streaming (including Peacock), the largest audience for a Saturday Wild Card game since Tom Brady’s final game with the Patriots in 2020 (31.42M). That includes a streaming audience of 3.1 million measured by Adobe Analytics.

I would expect two wild card games on streaming for 2025 for the NFL after this numbers.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

Cowboys' latest playoff flop averages 40 million viewers

The Cowboys' latest postseason flop attracted an audience of 40 million on FOX, one of the five largest Wild Card audiences on record.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

Sunday’s Packers-Cowboys NFC Wild Card Game averaged 40 million viewers on FOX, per Nielsen fast-nationals — up 20% from Giants-Vikings last year (33.2M) and the fifth-largest audience on record for a Wild Card game. (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included in Nielsen final nationals prior to 2020.) Dallas has played in three of the top five. Green Bay’s win, which peaked with 43.4 million from 6:45-7 PM ET, delivered the second-largest audience of the NFL season. The Commanders-Cowboys Thanksgiving Day game averaged 41.8 million on CBS.

 

[Kirk Van Houten]

MLK Day (1/15) sports ratings: PPD Steelers-Bills big for CBS

Postponed due to weather, a Steelers-Bills MLK Day matinee outdrew last year's equivalent Sunday game. Plus, more Monday sports viewership.

www.sportsmediawatch.com

NFL competition also hammered TNT’s NBA doubleheader. Warriors-Grizzlies averaged 513,000 viewers, down 36% from Suns-Grizzlies last year (805K). Spurs-Hawks led-in with just 345,000, down 43% from Heat-Hawks last year (604K) and the least-watched game on ESPN or TNT since at least the 2009-10 season. The previous low was 377,000 for Bulls-Grizzlies on ESPN in 2017 under the exact same circumstance of facing a rescheduled NFL playoff game.+

The postponed Bills v Steleers destroyed the NBA dh on mlk day