Ratings Roundup: Pro Football Hall of Fame Game Draws 7 Million During Quiet August for Sports

Ratings Roundup is a rundown of recent ratings news and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game tops Nielsen's Top 25 Live Sports Events Telecasts and averages 7 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, the NFL preseason opener's biggest audience since 2021; NBC Sports' Sunday Night Baseball tops 3 million viewers for a third consecutive week, a first in the property's history; FOX Saturday Baseball posts two of its strongest windows of the season; ESPN delivers big WNBA numbers multiple weeks in a row; the inaugural MoonPay X Games League Summer Season reaches 18.3 million unique live viewers, up 78.5% year over year; NASCAR's Iowa doubleheader leads cable and The CW; and the AUSL closes season two with a record softball audience.

Nielsen Top 25 Live Sports Events Telecasts: Aug. 3-9Nielsen's Top 25 Live Sports Events Telecasts for the week of Aug. 3-9 featured a mix of preseason NFL football, MLB, WNBA, golf, NASCAR, gymnastics, Little League softball, PBR, and IndyCar. NBC's coverage of the NFL's first preseason game of 2026, the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Cardinals and Panthers, was the week's No. 1 live sports event with 6.2 million viewers on Thursday, Aug. 6. The PGA TOUR's Wyndham Championship aced four spots, with CBS' final round at No. 2 and third round at No. 7 and Golf Channel's early-action windows at No. 15 (final round, 12:57-2:59 p.m.) and No. 22 (third round, 12:58-2:59 p.m.). The WNBA netted five positions: Fever-Sky on ABC (No. 3), Wings-Lynx on NBC (No. 8), Aces-Lynx on CBS (No. 10), Aces-Liberty on ABC (No. 11), and Valkyries-Sparks on ESPN (No. 18).

MLB drove in five spots, led by FOX's regional coverage of Guardians-White Sox, Orioles-Rangers, and Tigers-Giants at No. 4 and NBC's Astros-Padres at No. 5, followed by ESPN's Pirates-Brewers (No. 13), Giants-Rangers (No. 16), and Twins-Royals (No. 25). Little League softball on ESPN scored three placements with Clayton, NC-Owensboro, KY (No. 12), Owensboro, KY-Toms River, NJ (No. 20), and Lake Mary, FL-Clayton, NC (No. 23), while NBC's U.S. Gymnastics Championships coverage vaulted to No. 9, No. 19, and No. 21. NASCAR took two spots with the Cup Series race at Iowa Speedway on USA Network (No. 6) and the O'Reilly Auto Parts Series race on The CW (No. 14). FOX's Professional Bull Riders coverage lassoed No. 17, and the network's IndyCar coverage from Portland International Raceway took No. 24.

Hall of Fame Game Posts Its Biggest Canton Audience Since 2021Last Thursday's Pro Football Hall of Fame Game between the Cardinals and Panthers averaged 7 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, the largest audience for the NFL's preseason opener from Canton, OH, since the 2021 Steelers-Cowboys edition and up 1% from last year's higher-profile Chargers-Lions matchup. According to Front Office Sports, the game outdrew every MLB regular-season game so far this season - including the late-June Red Sox-Yankees Sunday night window - as well as the 2026 Home Run Derby on Netflix, U.S. coverage of every Stanley Cup Final game in June, both the men's and women's Wimbledon finals, and the final round of The Open. The number is more striking given the matchup: Carolina reached last season's playoffs out of a historically weak NFC South, but neither club is considered a serious Super Bowl LXI contender, and Arizona entered 2026 as the biggest long shot in preseason betting odds. The game has drawn larger audiences in the past when scheduled on a Sunday night; the last such edition, Vikings-Steelers in 2015, averaged 11 million viewers on NBC.

Sunday Night Baseball Tops 3 Million for a Third Straight WeekNBC Sports' Sunday Night Baseball presentation of Red Sox-Dodgers on Aug. 3 averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 3.8 million viewers across NBC and Peacock, based on Nielsen Big Data + Panel and digital data from Adobe Analytics. Boston's 8-4 win (7:20-10:29 p.m. ET) peaked at 4.4 million viewers during the 9:45 p.m. ET quarter hour and marked the first time in Sunday Night Baseball history - dating to the start of cable ratings in 1995 - that three consecutive games have topped 3 million viewers, following Dodgers-Yankees on July 19 (3.9 million) and Yankees-Phillies on July 26 (3.2 million). The Aug. 3 game ranks as the third most-watched MLB game of the season, behind Yankees-Red Sox on June 28 (4.0 million) and the July 19 Dodgers-Yankees window; all three were delivered by NBC Sports. It was also the fifth Sunday Night Baseball game this season to average at least 3 million viewers, the most since 2010. Through the season to date, the package is averaging 2.8 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, up 62% year over year.

FOX Saturday Baseball Posts Two of Its Best Windows of the SeasonFOX Saturday Baseball averaged 2,834,000 viewers for a two-game slate headlined by the Cubs' 5-2 win over the Yankees in most of the country, the package's second-best performance of the season and a 45% increase over last year's FOX Saturday Baseball average of 1,960,000. That window peaked at 3,222,000 viewers from 9:15 to 9:30 p.m. ET and delivered local home-market ratings of 4.8/24 in Cleveland, 4.3/20 in Chicago, 3.3/19 in Phoenix, and 2.5/13 in New York. The following Saturday, a three-game slate featuring the White Sox' 6-3 victory over the Guardians in most of the country averaged 2,223,000 viewers to rank as the No. 1 MLB telecast of the week on any network, up 13% against last year's package average. That telecast peaked at 2,365,000 viewers from 9:15 to 9:30 p.m. ET, with local home-market ratings of 7.1 in Detroit, 6.2 in Cleveland, 3.8 in Baltimore, 2.7 in Dallas, 2.0 in Chicago, and 1.9 in San Francisco.

ESPN Deliv

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