The Pro Bowl on Sunday night drew 7.99 million viewers, marking the event’s lowest audience since it moved to the weekend before the Super Bowl in ‘10. The audience is still well above what the game was seeing many years leading up to that move. The low point remains ESPN’s 5.96 million viewers in ’06. Sunday night’s game was down 9% from 8.77 million viewers for last year’s game on ESPN, and down 30% from 11.38 million viewers when NBC aired the game in ’14. The Pro Bowl in ’14 had head-to-head competition from the Grammys. Sunday night’s Pro Bowl had competition from Fox’ “Grease Live,” which drew 12.21 million viewers.
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PRO BOWL AUDIENCE TREND
|
|
YEAR
|
NET
|
VIEWERS (000)
|
|
'16
|
ESPN
|
7,987
|
|
'15
|
ESPN
|
8,770
|
|
'14*
|
NBC
|
11,378
|
|
'13
|
NBC
|
12,156
|
|
12
|
NBC
|
12,498
|
|
11
|
Fox
|
13,406
|
|
'10*
|
ESPN
|
12,297
|
|
'09*
|
NBC
|
8,798
|
|
'08
|
Fox
|
9,971
|
|
'07**
|
CBS
|
6,983
|
| |
|
|
CHART NOTES: * = Grammys competition. ** = Aired on a Saturday night.
ICE IS HOT: NBCSN aired the NHL All-Star Game on Sunday, drawing the net’s best audience yet for the event. NBCSN finished with 1.6 million viewers for the game from 5:03-8:27pm ET, up 34% from 1.19 million viewers last year. The NHL ASG was on hiatus in ’14 and ’13 due to the Sochi Games and lockout, respectively. The last time the game was on broadcast TV in ’04, ABC drew 2.68 million viewers. Sunday's game peaked at 1.89 viewers from 6:30-6:45pm. Buffalo and Pittsburgh led all markets with a 3.7 local rating.
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NHL ALL-STAR GAME AUDIENCE TREND
|
|
YEAR
|
NET
|
VIEWERS (000)
|
LOCATION
|
|
'16
|
NBCSN
|
1,595
|
Nashville
|
|
'15
|
NBCSN
|
1,194
|
Columbus
|
|
'14
|
No game due to Sochi Games
|
|
'13
|
No game due to lockout
|
|
12
|
NBCSN
|
1,317
|
Ottawa
|
|
'11
|
NBCSN
|
1,481
|
Raleigh
|
|
'10
|
No game due to Vancouver Games
|
|
'09
|
NBCSN
|
1,087
|
Montreal
|
|
'08
|
NBCSN
|
852
|
Atlanta
|
|
'07
|
NBCSN
|
673
|
Dallas
|
|
'06
|
No game due to Turin Games
|
|
'05
|
No game due to lockout
|
|
'04
|
ABC
|
2,681
|
Minnesota
|
|
'03
|
ABC
|
2,449
|
Sunrise
|
|
'02
|
ABC
|
2,676
|
L.A.
|
|
|
|
|
|
SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY: The Pro Bowl, which also aired on ESPN Deportes, was the most-social sports telecast last week, as 6.19 million saw one or more of the 359,000 tweets sent about the game, according to data from Nielsen Social. Some 2,207 tweets were sent at 9:43pm ET on Sunday about the Pro Bowl, while Twitter users voted for the MVP. Ranking second for the week was the Spurs-Warriors game on NBA TV (plus local RSNs) on Jan. 25. That game saw 5.42 million people seeing one or more of 318,000 tweets. The NHL ASG ranked third, as 4.37 million people saw 326,000 tweets.
