Audience Analysis: Belmont Sees Lowest Viewership Since '10 Sans Triple Crown Threat

NBC finished with 5.83 million viewers for the Belmont Stakes last Saturday, which saw Creator win the final leg of horse racing’s Triple Crown. That figure is the race’s lowest audience since ’10, when ABC drew 4.74 million viewers for Drosselmeyer’s win, which also did not have the Triple Crown on the line. Last year, when American Pharoah won the Triple Crown, the telecast drew 18.6 million viewers. When California Chrome was going for the Triple Crown in ’14, the race drew 20.6 million viewers.

BELMONT CHART NOTES: * = Race had horse going for Triple Crown, but lost. ** = Triple Crown winner.

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL: The Copa America Centenario group stage matches (24 telecasts) averaged 2.4 million viewers across Univision, UniMas and Univision Deportes. That figure was well above the audience for Fox/FS1/FS2, whose average was well under 1 million viewers. The average for the Univision networks was 3% higher than what the net drew for the ’14 FIFA World Cup group stage. Univision Deportes President Juan Carlos Rodriguez in February said that the company expected the audience for Copa America to 8-10% higher than what it saw for the World Cup. Additional Mexico matches may help close that gap. Copa America matches involving Mexico were obviously the top draw thus far, as El Tri’s three matches averages 4.9 million viewers on Univision networks. FS1 did set new soccer records during all three U.S. matches. Leading the way was the cable net’s U.S.-Paraguay match last Saturday, which drew 2.06 million viewers to top the previous record set by U.S.-Costa Rica on June 7 (1.6 million viewers).

NOTES: TBS last Friday -- up against NBA Finals Game 4 in primetime -- drew 153,000 viewers for the third week of its ELeague broadcasts. The e-sports competition drew 386,000 viewers the week prior....ESPN averaged 1.34 million viewers for the three-game Women’s College World Series finale last week, which saw Oklahoma defeat Auburn. That figure is down 30% from the record-setting Florida-Michigan three-game series last year (1.91 million viewers)....The KPMG Women's PGA Championship totaled 6.09 million viewers for all live and replay broadcasts across NBC and Golf Channel last week, marking the second-best women's golf event audience since NBC and ESPN aired the U.S. Women's Open in '14. The top tourney remains last year's U.S. Women's Open on Fox and FS1 with 6.14 million viewers for all telecasts.

The chart below lists final audience figures from select sports telecasts.

CHART NOTES: * = Final round was delayed due to rain. CBS aired the final round from 3:30-6:00pm, then CNBC aired from 6:00-8:00pm before and NBCSN finished coverage from 8:00-8:47pm. ** = Race had been rained out on Sunday. Ran the next day.