Audience Analysis: Euro 2016 Finale Down; Olympic Trials Continue To Trend Lower

ESPN finished with 4.54 million viewers for the Euro 2016 finale, which saw Portugal beat host country France. That figure is down slightly from the net's 4.58 million viewers for Spain-Italy in '12. That figure also is higher than the top audience for the Copa America Centenario last month -- 3.29 million viewers on FS1 for the Argentina-U.S. semifinal. Meanwhile, the Portugal-France finale also drew 1.36 million viewers on ESPN Deportes, marking the Spanish-language net's best audience ever for any program. For the complete Euro 2016, ESPN and ESPN2 averaged 1.04 million viewers across 51 matches, down from 1.3 million viewers for 31 matches in '12. 

TRIAL BALLOONS: Sunday night's telecast on NBC of the U.S. Women's Gymnastics Trials was the most-viewed sporting event last week with 8.58 million viewers in primetime. But that figure is down 14% from 10.02 million viewers for the same window in '12. Friday night's coverage of the event on NBC also drew 5.48 million viewers, down 30% from '12. NBC also drew 4.99 million viewers for the U.S. Track & Field Trials on Sunday night, down 12% from the Sunday night window in '12. Track & Field also drew 3.44 million viewers on Saturday night, down 47% from '12. The decline for women's gymnastics and track & field joins a sharp drop that was seen by the U.S. Swimming Trials.

SECOND EFFORT: The U.S. Women's Open in its second year on Fox saw the final round average 1.3 million viewers on Sunday, as Brittany Lang beat Anna Nordqvist in a playoff. That figure is up from 970,000 viewers for the final round last year, when Chun In-gee held off Amy Yang. However, this year's figure is down from 2.0 million viewers in '14, when Michelle Wie held off Stacy Lewis.

NOTES: NBCSN drew 3.19 million viewers for the cable net's first NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race of the season on Saturday night, and that figure marks the lowest audience for the annual stop at Kentucky Speedway since the track was added to the Cup schedule in '11. The audience this year is down 0.7% from 3.22 million viewers last year and down from 3.57 million viewers on TNT in '14....FS1 on Saturday night drew 1.79 million viewers for the UFC 200 prelims, marking the third-best UFC prelims audience for the net yet, behind only UFC 194 and UFC 196. The first 32 minutes of the event aired on FS1 due to Yankees-Indians running long, and the 582,000 viewers for that window marks FS2's best audience on record.

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