Audience Analysis: Down Year For Pro Bowl, Winter X, Torrey Pines

The Pro Bowl drew 8.2 million viewers on Sunday afternoon (3:00pm ET) across ABC, ESPN and Disney XD, down 4% from 8.6 million viewers last year on ABC/ESPN. However, the game is up from 7.4 million viewers two years ago, when it aired in primetime solely on ESPN. The ’19 Pro Bowl audience sits right in between the most recent All-Star Games for MLB (8.7 million on Fox) and NBA (7.7 million viewers on TNT/TBS). Disney XD in its first year simulcasting the game drew 151,000 viewers on its own.

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JOKER’S WILD: ESPN averaged 556,000 viewers for the Australian Open men’s final on Sunday morning (3:30am start), which saw Novak Djokovic defeat Rafael Nadal in straight sets. That figure is down from 598,000 viewers for Roger Federer’s five-set win over Marin Cilic last year. Meanwhile, Naomi Osaka's win over Petra Kvitova in the women's final drew 529,000 viewers, up 18% from Caroline Wozniacki's win over Simona Haelp last year. Overall, ESPN and ESPN2 saw Australian Open viewership rise 28% compared to '18. The most-viewed match was Karolina Pliskova's quarterfinal win over Serena Williams on Jan. 22, which drew 631,000 viewers. Overall, 19 of the 25 live telecast windows showed improvement over '18.

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TIGER’S BACK: Golf Channel drew 546,000 viewers for the opening round of the PGA Tour Farmers Insurance Open on Thursday from 3:00-7:00pm, which featured Tiger Woods’ first tournament of the ’18-19 season. However, the event at Torrey Pines last year was Woods’ first event of any kind in 12 months, and Golf Channel delivered 672,000 for that opening round. Two years ago, Woods also played the event, and Golf Channel drew 784,000 viewers for the round. Meanwhile, Golf Channel’s coverage of the second round drew 567,000 viewers this year, down 36% from ’18.

FREEZER BURN: The Winter X Games averaged 623,000 viewers for six live telecasts across ESPN, ABC and ESPN2 last week, marking the event’s lowest average since ’99, when the three nets averaged 461,000 viewers. Last year, the event averaged 851,000 viewers.

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KICK STARTERS: Univision has carried seven of the top 10 most-watched soccer matches during January, led by the Chivas-Cruz Azul Liga MX match on Jan. 12, which drew 993,000 viewers. Meanwhile, ESPN2 carried the USMNT friendly against Panama on Sunday night, which was the first match under new USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter. That game drew 545,000 viewers.

STREAM OF THOUGHT: Conviva, a global real-time measurement and intelligence platform for streaming TV, came out with a review of '18 this week, and data shows that streaming hours overall were up 89% last year. Connected TVs like Roku, Amazon Fire and Apple TV came out on top among streaming devices with a 121% surge in viewing hours (56% of all viewing hours in '18). Among major sporting events, the FIFA World Cup resulted in a 12% lift to global viewing hours throughout the month-long tourney. The Pyeongchang Games earlier in the year also drove a daily increase in viewership of 26% worldwide. Despite a primarily U.S.-based audience, NFL games in '18 drove large, global spikes of 15% on Sundays during the season. 

NOTES: With out-of-home and streaming viewership now available, ESPN's MegaCast audience for the Jan. 7 Clemson-Alabama CFP National Championship has risen from 25.28 million viewers to 26.98 million viewers. That figure is down from 29.93 million for Alabama-Georgia last year, but up from 26.37 million for Clemson-Alabama two years ago. OOH added 1.3 million viewers this year, while streaming added 399,000 viewers....FS1 drew 683,000 viewers for Michigan State-Iowa on Thursday night, marking the most-viewed regular-season college hoops game ever on FS1, and the second-best CBB game of any kind on the cable net. Fox and FS1 remain on pace for the networks' best CBB regular season on record, even with FS1 down 1% on its own....Friday night’s NHL SuperSkills competition on NBCSN drew 612,000 viewers, down from 942,000 viewers on a Saturday night last season.

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

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