ESPN wrapped up its slate of “Sunday Night Baseball” games last weekend, and for the ’17 season, the net saw an 8% increase in average viewership. For 26 games, ESPN averaged 1.73 million viewers, up from 1.6 million last season. But ’17 was down from 1.8 million viewers two seasons ago. Fueling the year-over-year gains in ’17 was the season-opening Cubs-Cardinals matchup (3.62 million viewers), which marked the best “SNB” audience since the ’11 season. WatchESPN also saw solid “SNB” gains this season, as the average minute audience for streams was up 32% (33,000 vs. 25,000).
LAST HOLE: NBC drew 2.46 million viewers for the Tour Championship last Sunday, which saw Xander Schauffele win the PGA Tour finale by one stroke over Justin Thomas, who at the same time won the FedExCup Playoffs. That figure is down from 2.54 million viewers for Rory McIlroy’s win at the event last year, but up from 2.4 million viewers for Jordan Spieth’s win two years ago.
The chart below lists final audience figures from select recent sports telecasts.
| TELECAST |
DATE
|
NET
|
TIME (ET)
|
RAT.
|
VIEWERS
(000)
|
| NFL: Bengals-Packers (80%) |
9/24
|
CBS
|
4:25-7:30pm
|
12.2
|
21,271
|
| "SNF": Raiders-Redskins |
9/24
|
NBC
|
8:31-11:13pm
|
10.1
|
17,478
|
| NFL: (singleheader) |
9/24
|
Fox
|
1:00-4:30pm
|
9.2
|
15,431
|
| NFL: (regional) |
9/24
|
CBS
|
1:00-4:00pm
|
8.4
|
14,414
|
| "MNF": Lions-Giants |
9/18
|
ESPN
|
8:15-11:30pm
|
7.4
|
12,288
|
| "TNF": Rams-49ers |
9/21
|
NFL Net
|
8:27-11:50pm
|
4.4
|
7,455
|
| "Football Night in America" |
9/24
|
NBC
|
7:30-8:20pm
|
4.3
|
7,327
|
College football:
Penn State-Iowa |
9/23
|
ABC
|
7:36-11:21pm
|
3.1
|
5,259
|
| College football: (regional) |
9/23
|
ABC
|
12:01-3:44pm
|
2.5
|
3,749
|
College football:
Michigan-Purdue |
9/23
|
Fox
|
4:30-7:45pm
|
2.2
|
3,521
|
College football:
Notre Dame-Michigan State |
9/23
|
Fox
|
8:17-11:52pm
|
2.1
|
3,456
|
| College football: USC-Cal |
9/23
|
ABC
|
4:01-7:20pm
|
2.0
|
3,122
|
College football:
Alabama-Vanderbilt |
9/23
|
CBS
|
3:30-7:00pm
|
1.9
|
2,993
|
College football:
Mississippi State-Georgia |
9/23
|
ESPN
|
7:09-10:16pm
|
1.6
|
2,798
|
College football:
Texas A&M-Arkansas |
9/23
|
ESPN
|
12:00-3:52pm
|
1.6
|
2,611
|
College football:
TCU-Oklahoma State |
9/23
|
ESPN
|
3:52-7:09pm
|
1.5
|
2,479
|
PGA Tour: Tour Championship:
final round |
9/24
|
NBC
|
1:30-6:00pm
|
1.6
|
2,460
|
Monster Energy NASCAR
Cup Series:
ISM Connect 300
(New Hampshire) |
9/24
|
NBCSN
|
2:25-5:33pm
|
1.3
|
1,992
|
| College football: UCLA-Stanford |
9/23
|
ESPN
|
10:30pm-2:25am
|
1.0
|
1,665
|
PGA Tour: Tour Championship:
third round |
9/23
|
NBC
|
2:30-6:30pm
|
1.1
|
1,650
|
| "College GameDay" |
9/23
|
ESPN
|
9:00am-12:00pm
|
n/a
|
1,645
|
| MLB: (regional) |
9/23
|
Fox
|
1:00-4:00pm
|
1.0
|
1,589
|
| "Monday Night Countdown" |
9/18
|
ESPN
|
6:00-8:15pm
|
n/a
|
1,585
|
| MLS: (regionalized) |
9/24
|
Fox
|
5:00-7:00pm
|
0.9
|
1,352
|
| "Sunday NFL Countdown" |
9/24
|
ESPN
|
10:00am-1:00pm
|
n/a
|
1,342
|
| EPL: Liverpool-Leicester City |
9/23
|
NBC
|
12:30-2:30pm
|
0.5
|
750
|
WNBA Finals:
Sparks-Lynx: Game 1 |
9/24
|
ABC
|
3:30-6:00pm
|
0.4
|
566
|
"World of X Games:
Street League Skateboarding" |
9/24
|
ABC
|
2:30-3:30pm
|
0.3
|
401
|
