Ratings Roundup: WNBA on ESPN Earns Most-Watched Opener in Eight Years; CBS Sees Highest-Rated NWSL Match in History

Ratings Roundup: WNBA on ESPN Earns Most-Watched Opener in Eight Years; CBS Sees Highest-Rated NWSL Match in History By Kristian Hernandez, Associate Editor

Thursday, July 30, 2020 - 9:00 am

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Ratings roundup is a rundown of rating news from the past week and is derived from press releases and reports around the industry. In this week's edition, the WNBA got off to a hot start on ESPN, the NWSL concluded their bubble season with the highest-rated match in league history, NBC Sports' Premier League coverage hits new high in four years, MLB Opening Day on ESPN reaches the largest audience ever, and much more.

WNBA Generates Most-Watched Opener Since 2012

ESPN's WNBA opening weekend coverage (July 25 and 26) tipped the season off strong with Saturday's opener between the Los Angeles Sparks and Phoenix Mercury on ABC, becoming the league's most-watched opener on the ESPN family of networks since 2012 (average of 539,000 viewers). ESPN's four-game opening slate averaged 401,000 viewers across ESPN and ABC, up 63% over the 2019 WNBA regular season average on ESPN's Networks.

In addition to achieving a multi-year high, ABC's viewership for Saturday's Los Angeles Sparks vs. Phoenix Mercury match-up (3 p.m. ET) was up 19% from last year's season opener on ABC. The game peaked during the 3:45-4 p.m. quarter hour at 617,000 viewers and saw its strongest numbers in the following markets:

West Palm Beach (1.3)

Atlanta, Kansas City & Tulsa (1.0)

Norfolk-Portsmouth-Newport News & Phoenix (.9)

ABC's Sunday telecast between the Chicago Sky and the Las Vegas Aces (3 p.m.) averaged 433,000 viewers; the close game led to a peak audience of as 646,000 viewers watched in the final five minutes of the Sky's victory (5:15-5:20 p.m.).

ESPN's Saturday telecast between the Seattle Storm and New York Liberty (noon) averaged 419,000 viewers, making it the most watched season opener on ESPN since 2016. The game peaked in the 12:30-12:45 p.m. quarter hour with 526,000 viewers. Top performing markets include:

Seattle-Tacoma (1.2)

Jacksonville- N. Brunswick (1)

Birmingham (.9)

Sunday's match-up between the Connecticut Sun and the Minnesota Lynx on ESPN averaged 202,000 viewers.

NWSL Final Becomes Highest-Rated Match in League History

According to SportsMediaWatch, Sunday's Houston-Chicago NWSL Challenge Cup final averaged a 0.44 rating and 653,000 viewers on CBS, marking the highest rated and most-watched telecast in league history. The previous high was set by the tournament opener on CBS last month, which averaged a 0.37 and 572,000. Prior to this year, no NWSL match had ever exceeded 190,000 viewers.

Compared to last year's NWSL final, which aired on ESPN on an NFL Sunday, viewership jumped 293% from 166,000.

Only one MLS match all season has averaged a larger audience than Sunday's final, Nashville-Atlanta on the opening weekend of play in February (756K).

For the weekend, Houston-Chicago ranked second among soccer broadcasts behind the Manchester United-Leicester City English Premier League Championship Sunday match on NBC (0.50, 750K).

Premier League Hits New High on NBC

NBC Sports' presentation of the longest Premier League season ever - spanning 352 days due to the coronavirus pandemic - concluded this past Sunday, July 26 as the most-watched Premier League season in four years, according to official national data provided by Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

NBC Sports Group averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 462,000 viewers per match window for the 2019-20 season - marking the highest average Premier League viewership since 2015-16, and up 1% from last year (457,000) (does not include Spanish-language telecasts or NBC Sports Gold/Peacock streaming). Prior to the shutdown in mid-March, viewership was pacing 4% ahead of last season.

The five Championship Sunday matches on television registered a combined Total Audience Delivery of 1.7 million viewers (does not include the five matches streamed on NBC Sports Gold/Peacock).

Premier League Viewership Highlights include:

Manchester United's 2-0 win over Manchester City on Sunday, March 8 posted a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) average of 1.76 million viewers across all platforms - NBC, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and Telemundo - to rank as the most-watched live Premier League match in U.S. history.

NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app delivered 925.3 million live streaming minutes - the most all time - during the 2019-20 season. In addition, four of the 10 most-streamed Premier League matches of all time in the U.S. took place in 2019-20.

NBCSN registered a Total Audience Delivery average of 1.01 million viewers for the Aug. 11 Manchester United-Chelsea match - ranking as the most-watched opening weekend Premier League cable match ever in the U.S. and the most-watched cable match in four years.

New Year's Day Premier League coverage set viewership milestones on NBCSN as Arsenal-Manchester United became NBCSN's most-watched weekday match ever (721,000 viewers). NBCSN also delivered the most-watched New Year's Day Premier League coverage ever, averaging 492,000 viewers across four matches.

NBCSN's weekday afternoon matches during the Premier League's Project Restart averaged 315,000 viewers - up 32% from weekday matches this season prior to the March shutdown (239,000), and 45% above the full 2018-19 season weekday afternoon average. In addition, since June 17, NBCSN televised four of the six most-watched weekday Premier League matches since 2014 (excluding holidays).

Premier League highlights on NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and the NBC Sports channel on YouTube, and NBC Sports Soccer content across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook this season generated more than 200

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