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Audience Analysis: NBA Summer League A Hit; U.S. Women's Open Hits New Low

NBA Summer League took advantage of the increased attention around the NBA this offseason and posted big gains on TV this year, particularly with Lakers G Lonzo Ball bringing unprecedented attention to the Vegas circuit. ESPN and ESPN2 aired 25 games across the Vegas, Orlando and Utah summer leagues, averaging 437,000 viewers, which was up 51% from 290,000 viewers for 23 games last year. The networks ended up airing ESPN’s seven most-viewed summer league games on record. Celtics-Lakers on July 8 led the way with 1.11 million viewers. For the Vegas league itself, ESPN averaged 783,000 viewers for five games, up 112% from 369,000 viewers for three games last year. Meanwhile, NBA TV’s 54 summer league telecasts across the three circuits led to the net seeing a 7% viewership gain. NBA TV’s “The Starters Live From Vegas” also saw an 85% jump in viewership. The Vegas league's Twitter handle set social media records for a summer league, as there were 436 million video views (+37% from '16) and 815,000 combined tweets (+59% from '16) using either Summer League or #NBA Summer. Ball's lineup introduction for his Vegas debut, which was posted to Instagram, had 2.6 million viewers, marking the sixth-best NBA video all-time on the social media platform.

TRUMP CARD: Fox and FS1 last week had the lowest four-day viewership for a U.S. Women’s Open on record (dating back to ’95). Excluding a two-hour rain delay during the first round, the event averaged 454,000 viewers, down 26% from last year. This year will be the first year since ’02 that the U.S. Women’s Open is not the most-viewed women’s golf event on TV. Sunday’s final round on Fox averaged 790,000 viewers as Sun Hyun Park held off Hye Jin Choi, Mi Jung Hur and Se Yeon Ryu for the win. That is down 39% from 1.3 million viewers last year, when Brittany Lang beat Anna Nordqvist in a playoff. Fox drew 970,000 viewers for the final round in ’15, when In Gee Chun beat Amy Yang by a stroke.

THAT DOG WON'T HUNT: ESPN on July 13 averaged 657,000 viewers for the premiere of "Mike & The Mad Dog" as part of its "30 for 30" series. That figure is just below the 685,000 viewers that "Phi Slamma Jamma" drew last October, which focused on the Univ. of Houston basketball squad from the early '80s. It also was just above the 611,000 viewers for "Of Miracles And Men" in February '15, which focused on the '80 U.S. men's hockey team. The documentary focusing on the former WFAN sports talk duo did better in the N.Y. market, drawing a 2.51 local rating, which was around five times average of other markets around the country.

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

TELECAST
DATE
NET
TIME (ET)
RAT.
VIEWERS
(000)
MLB All-Star Game
7/11
Fox
8:16-11:39pm
5.5
9,281
MLB Home Run Derby
7/10
ESPN
8:15-10:26pm
4.6
8,176
MLB All-Star Legends &
Celebrity Softball Game
7/10
ESPN
10:26-11:30pm
2.0
3,580
Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series:
Overton's 301 (New Hampshire)
7/16
NBCSN
3:25-6:29pm
2.0
3,210
MLB: Yankees-Red Sox
7/16
ESPN
8:00-11:15pm
1.6
2,456
PGA Tour: John Deere Classic:
Final Round
7/16
CBS
3:00-6:00pm
1.1
1,669
Liga MX: Campeón de Campeones:
Tigres UANL-Chivas
7/16
Univision
10:33pm-1:00am
0.8
1,654
"NASCAR Cup Series Postrace"
7/16
NBCSN
6:29-7:15pm
n/a
1,611
Wimbledon: Men's final:
Roger Federer-Marin Cilic
7/16
ESPN
9:00am-3:00pm
0.9
1,393
"NASCAR Cup Series Countdown"
7/16
NBCSN
2:30-3:00pm
n/a
1,256
PGA Tour: John Deere Classic:
Third Round
7/15
CBS
3:00-6:00pm
0.8
1,213
NASCAR Xfinity Series:
Overton's 200 (New Hampshire)
7/15
NBCSN
4:21-7:11pm
0.8
1,165
Wimbledon: Women's final:
Garbine Muguruza-Venus Williams (re-air)
7/15
ABC
4:00-6:00pm
0.7
1,031
Wimbledon men's semifinals
7/14
ESPN
8:00am-2:00pm
n/a
987
Wimbledon: Women's final:
Garbine Muguruza-Venus Williams
7/15
ESPN
9:00am-5:26pm
0.6
937
Premier Boxing Champions:
Omar Figueroa Jr.-Robert Guerrero
7/15
Fox
8:00-9:54pm
0.6
886
Wimbledon: Men's final:
Roger Federer-Marin Cilic (re-air)
7/16
ABC
3:00-6:00pm
0.6
884
European Tour: Abderdeen Asset
Management Scottish Open: Third Round
7/15
NBC
12:30-3:00pm
0.6
846
European Tour: Abderdeen Asset
Management Scottish Open: Final Round
7/16
NBC
12:30-3:00pm
0.6
846
Golf: U.S. Women's Open: Final Round
7/16
Fox
2:15-6:45pm
0.6
790
World Series of Beach Volleyball:
U.S. vs. World
7/16
ABC
12:00-1:00pm
0.5
783
Golf: American Century Championship:
Final Round
7/16
NBC
3:00-6:00pm
0.5
761
Golf: American Century Championship:
Second Round
7/15
NBC
3:00-6:00pm
0.5
722
X Games (Minneapolis)
7/15
ABC
1:00-4:00pm
0.4
666
Golf: U.S. Women's Open: Third Round
7/15
Fox
2:00-6:00pm
0.5
653
X Games (Minneapolis)
7/16
ABC
1:00-3:00pm
0.4
601
Major League Fishing (taped)
7/15
CBS
2:00-3:00pm
0.4
559
Formula E: New York ePrix:
Race 2 (Brooklyn)
7/16
Fox
1:00-2:00pm
0.3
477

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