Ratings Roundup: 2021 WNBA Regular Season Experiences 49% Increase; NHL Debuts on ESPN, TNT to Positive Numbers By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor
Friday, October 22, 2021 - 6:32 am
Print This Story | Subscribe
Story Highlights
Ratings roundup is a rundown of recent rating news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, WNBA Finals Sees 49% increase, ESPN's NBA coverage opens big, ESPN's NFL studio shows are way up, Paramount draws big audiences for NFL and college football, ESPN's Monday Night Football and NFL on Fox both continue to show viewership growth over last year, TBS and Fox's LDS coverage gets a boost, and the debut of the NHL on TNT and ESPN drew record numbers.
The 2021 WNBA Finals on ESPN networks and ABC - Chicago Sky victory over the Phoenix Mercury - averaged 548,000 viewers across four games, a 23 percent increase from 2020 (447,000 average viewers in three games) and a 42 percent surge from 2019 (386,000 average viewers in five games). The 2021 Finals are the most viewed since the 2017 Finals between the LA Sparks and the Minnesota Lynx, which registered 563,000 viewers. (ESPN)
The New York Knicks thrilling double overtime victory over the Boston Celtics was ESPN's most-watched Wednesday season-opening game in 18 years, according to Nielsen. The telecast averaged 1.96 million viewers, peaking with 2.87 million viewers from 10:30-10:45 p.m. ET. Overall, last night was ESPN's most-watched season-opening doubleheader since 2017. The doubleheader, which included Knicks vs. Celtics and Phoenix Suns vs. Denver Nuggets, averaged 1.74 million viewers. This is up 39 percent vs. 2020, up 10 percent vs. 2019 and up 22 percent vs. 2018. (ESPN)
ESPN's NFL studio shows Sunday NFL Countdown, Monday Night Countdown, NFL Live, and NFL Rewind are experiencing year-over-year audience growth and delivering significant increases in key demos, including persons 18-24. The added audience for the studio shows, which span every day of the week except for Saturday, add to the success of ESPN's overall NFL portfolio, which includes Monday Night Football's significant audience growth and Monday Night Football with Peyton and Eli garnering record audiences for alternate telecasts. (ESPN)
Paramount , featuring live NFL ON CBS local market games, scored an NFL regular-season viewership record for total streams, minutes streamed and unique viewers. Additionally, Sunday's Dallas Cowboys vs. New England Patriots game was the most-streamed NFL regular-season contest ever on the service, surpassing the Dallas-LA Chargers matchup in Week 2. Through Week 6 of the NFL season, Paramount has seen double-digit growth in total streams, streaming minutes and unique viewers compared to the first six weeks of the 2020 season. (CBS Sports)
Paramount , featuring live SEC on CBS games, scored triple-digit growth in total streams and minutes streamed for Saturday's Georgia-Kentucky game when compared to the 2019 LSU-Mississippi State game, the most recent game in the comparable window. (CBS Sports)
ESPN's Monday Night Football experienced year-over-year gains for the fourth consecutive week (Weeks 3 through 6), as 12.6 million viewers (ESPN and ESPN Deportes) watched the Buffalo Bills and Tennessee Titans (October 18, 8 p.m. ET). The Bills-Titans audience 12,528,000 (ESPN only) was up 6% over the Dallas Cowboys' Week 6 appearance in 2020, when they hosted the Cardinals (11,831,000 viewers), and also is second-most-viewed Week 6 game since the 2015 season. (ESPN)
This week's NFL on Fox singleheader delivered year-over-year ratings growth. (Fox Sports)
The NLDS presented by Good Sam Game 5 between the Los Angeles Dodgers and San Francisco Giants averaged 6.5 million total viewers to deliver the most watched LDS telecast this postseason and the best NLDS game telecast on the network since 2017 (NLDS Game 5 - Cubs vs. Nationals). Dodgers/Giants NLDS Game 5 is up 75% over last year's LDS Game 5 (Yankees/Rays) on TBS. (Turner Sports)
TNT's first-ever NHL regular season telecast - the New York Rangers facing the Washington Capitals (7:40-10:14 p.m. ET) - is the most-watched game to ever air on the second night of nationally televised NHL coverage, among total viewers and all key adult and male demos. That makes it the largest audience for the second night of nationally televised NHL regular season action in the nearly 30 years on record. (TBS Sports)
The 2021 NHL FaceOff doubleheader marked the return of the NHL to the ESPN networks for the first time since 2004 and set a new high-water mark as the most-viewed NHL season-opening doubleheader on record. Combined, the NHL Faceoff doubleheader on ESPN averaged 884,000 viewers on ESPN over the more than five-hour window, which is up 54 percent over the 2019-20 season-opening doubleheader and up 19 percent over the 2020-21 season-opening tripleheader. It also topped the 2018 season-opening doubleheader by 81 percent. Among viewers 18-49, the doubleheader is up 28 percent vs the 2020-21 season-opening tripleheader, and up 56 percent and 74 percent respectively vs the 2019 and 2018 opening doubleheaders. (ESPN)
Fox's ALDS elimination game between the Astros and White Sox drew 1.8 million viewers across FS1, FOX Deportes and FOX Sports streaming services. (Fox Sports)
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
20/11/2025
LONDON The winners of the Rise Awards 2025, which recognize women and companies whose achievements have stood out in the media technology industry, have been an...
20/11/2025
SANTA MONICA & NEW YORK Lionsgate's Worldwide Television Distribution Group and Debmar-Mercury have launched MovieSphere Gold in more than 30 million homes....
20/11/2025
ALAMEDA, Calif. Clear-Com has introduced its four-channel HelixNet beltpack, a next-generation advancement of its widely used two-channel model, and anticipates...
20/11/2025
NEW PROVIDENCE, N.J. Streaming technology and services provider Kiswe has launched Kiswe Core, a next-generation cloud-based platform designed to simplify the s...
20/11/2025
MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif. Dolby Laboratories has signed on as an official signature partner of the Bay Area Host Committee (BAHC) for the 2026 Super Bowl and the we...
20/11/2025
STUTTGART, Germany 3 Screen Solutions (3SS) has announced that the Canadian multiservice operator Telus has launched its Telus TV+ entertainment platform on Sam...
20/11/2025
Major League Baseball has announced deals with ESPN, NBCUniversal and Netflix covering 2026-2028 that make ESPN the exclusive rightsholder of MLB.TV, see regula...
20/11/2025
Berklee Presents Holiday Extravaganza: Duke Ellingtons The Nutcracker Suite and ...
19/11/2025
Sphere Sound Kicks Up Its Heels at Radio City Music HallUltra-immersive system from the singular Las Vegas venue is also ready for sportsBy Dan Daley, Audio Edi...
19/11/2025
The Future of Stadium and Arena Video Control Rooms: Tech Leaders Talk 4K, IP, a...
19/11/2025
One Year at Intuit Dome: Walking Through the Stunning Arena's Advanced Video...
19/11/2025
SVG Sit-Down: IMG's Francois Westcombe Goes Inside IMG's Annual Digital ...
19/11/2025
Inside Brighton & Hove Albion's fan-first media machine By George Bevir
Tuesday, November 18, 2025 - 10:10
Print This Story
Brighton & Hove Albion'...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 1: Kansas Athletics Brings New Production Power to Rebu...
19/11/2025
Rock Chalk Rebuild, Part 2: A Pro's Guide to Kansas Athletics' New Video...
19/11/2025
MLB Media Rights Shakeup: NBC Inks Three-Year Deal for Sunday Night Baseball, Pe...
19/11/2025
Rohan Parashuram Kanawade attends the premiere of Sabar Bonda (Cactus Pears) at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival at Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Pa...
19/11/2025
Awards season is heating up, and the International Documentary Association just ...
19/11/2025
Aerojet Rocketdyne President Ken Bedingfield and Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders were joined by state and local officials to celebrate the groundbreaking o...
19/11/2025
L3Harris and PentenAmio formalise their teaming agreement at MilCIS 2025, streng...
19/11/2025
Calrec gives Phoenix Broadcast Solutions its full support in strategic multi-year enterprise partnership New Singapore OB company invests in Calrec technology f...
19/11/2025
October brings a larger audience in front of TV screens. The cooler autumn weather and the continuation of new programming schedules brought increases in both t...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Vitec has acquired Datapath, a developer of real-time video processing for large-scale video walls, AVoIP content distribution and KVM control in mission-critic...
19/11/2025
NEVADA CITY, Calif. Telestream has introduced ARGUS Version 2.3, which introduces Live Look, a feature that lets operators inspect live and on-demand streams vi...
19/11/2025
STAMFORD, Conn. and NEW YORK Charter Communications, Inc. has announced a major deal with Amazon Web Services (AWS) that establishes AWS as one of Charters stra...
19/11/2025
TOKYO Atomos has announced a major firmware update that brings integrated camera control to the Ninja TX GO and Ninja TX its new CFexpress-based monitor-recor...
19/11/2025
Berklee's Signature Series Reimagines the Musical and Visual Artistry of Col...
19/11/2025
PlayBox Neo departed the NAB Show New York 2025 on a high note. The company's all-new PlayBox Neo Suite made a splash on the show floor, drawing strong inte...
19/11/2025
AAVBR (American Audio Visual Baton Rouge), a leading full-service event production company serving Louisiana and the Gulf Coast region, has enhanced its product...
19/11/2025
In its mission to deliver live event services combining advanced engineering with a creative approach to captivating live sports and entertainment experiences, ...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK Short-form vertical video has exploded across platforms like TikTok, Instagram and YouTube, but a new survey commissioned by Media.net, a provider of c...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK YES Network, the regional sports network home of the New York Yankees and Brooklyn Nets, and CAMB.AI have struck a partnership they said will leverage ...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has issued detailed guidance on filings that were disrupted by the government shutdown. While many of those fil...
19/11/2025
NEW YORK The popularity of NFL games is largely responsible for continued seasonal momentum in TV viewership into October (measured Sept. 29-Oct. 26), according...
19/11/2025
DirecTV has announced that its MyFree DirecTV streaming service has added seven new channels. Those include four sports services, NBA FAST, Red Bull TV, DAZN Ri...
19/11/2025
SURREY, U.K. Mark Roberts Motion Control (MRMC) has launched Flair Bridge, a compact device that transforms how operators control the company's motion-contr...
19/11/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission, which is continuing to rapidly ramp up its operations after the end of the federal government shutdown, has se...
19/11/2025
IRVING, Texas Nexstar Media Group and Tegna filed applications on Nov. 18 with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) seeking its consent to transfer broad...
19/11/2025
Martin Freeman, Jessie Buckley, Wu-Tang Clan's Raekwon, Eddie the Eagle and ...
19/11/2025
Rohde & Schwarz collaborates with Broadcom to enable testing and validation of n...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Innato, starring Imanol Arias and Elena Anaya, arrives on Netf...
19/11/2025
Back to All News
Guillermo del Toro Sits Down With Troll 2 Director Roar Uthaug...
19/11/2025
Some projects feel monumental from the moment the first phone call comes in. When BCE, the host broadcaster appointed to coordinate the national coverage, asked...
19/11/2025
November 19 2025, 08:00 (PST) BAY AREA HOST COMMITTEE AND DOLBY PARTNER TO DELIVER IMMERSIVE FAN EXPERIENCES
During the Week of Football's Biggest Game...
19/11/2025
Michael D. Higgins: Ireland's Ninth President features RT Archives footage and interviews across seven decades
Watch Wednesday 19 November at 9:35pm on RT...
19/11/2025
Scripps Research scientists receive $1.1 million to advance AI modeling for HIV vaccine development New AI system helps scientists rapidly pinpoint the most pro...
18/11/2025
Independent media across Central America are operating under intensifying financial pressure, yet there is a clear appetite for models that can sustain both ind...
Ratings Roundup: 2021 WNBA Regular Season Experiences 49% Increase; NHL Debuts on ESPN, TNT to Positive Numbers By Jason Dachman, Chief Editor 
