Ratings Roundup: ESPN's Monday Night Football Nabs Nearly 20 Million Viewers, Alabama-Texas is 2022's Most-Watched CFB Game on Any Network By SVG Staff
Thursday, September 15, 2022 - 10:05 pm
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, ESPN's Monday Night Football Nabs Nearly 20 Million Viewers and Alabama-Texas is 2022's Most-Watched CFB Game on Any Network.
ESPN's Monday Night Football Nabs Nearly 20 Million Viewers in Record-Setting Season Opener
ESPN's delivered its most-watched Monday Night Football game since 2009 and its third best Monday game in the current era (2006 - present and 270 games), as 19,845,000 viewers - across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN and ESPN Deportes - turned in for the Seattle Seahawks' victory over the Denver Broncos in quarterback Russell Wilson's return (September 12, 8:15 p.m. ET).
The highly anticipated showdown, which marked the debut of Joe Buck and Troy Aikman in the Monday Night Football broadcast booth and began Lisa Salters' 11th season on the franchise's sideline, was easily ESPN's most-watched Week 1 game since it began airing Monday Night Football (32 games) and was up 16% from last year's record-setting Week 1 audience.
Alabama-Texas is 2022's Most-Watched CFB Game on Any Network
NASCAR Ratings Info Kansas
NASCAR Cup Series - The event at Kansas earned a 1.10 rating on USA, with an average of 1.90 million viewers tuned in
NASCAR ranked as the #2 sport of the day on cable
Rating up 3% (1.07, Richmond on Saturday night) and viewership up 5% (1.9 million) over the 2021 event on NBCSN
Viewership peaked with 2.1 million viewers tuned in
2022 Is Most-watched NTT Indycar Series Season In Six Years And Most-watched Across NBC Sports On Record
NBC Sports' 2022 coverage of the NTT INDYCAR SERIES delivered the most-watched INDYCAR season in six years (since 2016) and NBC Sports' most-watched season on record, an increase of 5% compared to 2021.
The 2022 NTT INDYCAR SERIES season, capped off by Will Power winning his second-career series championship, averaged a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 1.30 million viewers across NBC, USA Network, Peacock and NBC Sports digital platforms, marking the most-watched season for the INDYCAR SERIES since 2016 (1.31 million viewers, NBCSN TAD/ABC TV-only) and ranking as the best in NBC Sports history, up 5% vs. last year's then-record viewership (1.24 million viewers, NBC/NBCSN). TAD is based on data from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics.
Half of the season's 16 races on television delivered a TAD of more than 1 million viewers, the highest mark since 2008. The inaugural race of 2022, the Grand Prix of St. Petersburg on Feb. 27, stands as the most-watched season-opener in 11 years with a TAD of 1.44 million viewers (St. Pete, 2011, 1.84 million, ABC) and the most-watched non-Indianapolis 500 INDYCAR race in 11 years.
An All-Time Record-Setting Weekend for ESPN Digital
ESPN Digital achieved its best day of all time on Sunday, September 11, and its third best day ever on Saturday, September 10, fueled by a huge weekend in sports that included ESPN coverage of the NFL, college football, US Open Tennis, UFC 279, WNBA Finals, LaLiga and Bundesliga soccer, Formula 1, ESPN Fantasy Football, and more.
On Sunday, ESPN Digital platforms, including ESPN.com, the ESPN App and the ESPN Fantasy App, were up 8% over the same Sunday in 2021, while Saturday was up 17% over the equivalent day last year. (Source: Adobe Analytics)
Saturday also marked the third most-viewed day of all time on ESPN , which followed the most-viewed day ever for ESPN on Saturday, September 3.
The ESPN App and the ESPN Fantasy App also set all-time records.
The ESPN App recorded its two best days ever over the weekend, reaching an all-time high on Saturday with 13.1 million unique fans, followed by its second most ever on Sunday with 12.6 million, up 14% and 18%, respectively, over the equivalent days last year.
With 9.2 million unique visitors on Sunday, September 11, the ESPN Fantasy App had its best day ever, beating its previous high set just three days prior (8.3 million on Thursday, September 8) and exceeding last year's NFL opening Sunday by 1.1 million.
US Open Audience up 50% from 2021, ESPN's Third Best Ever
The 2022 US Open on ESPN averaged 1.21 million viewers over the two weeks and nearly 168 hours of wall-to-wall live coverage, up 50% from last year and the third-best for ESPN since it gained exclusivity for the last of tennis' four Majors each year in 2015. The audience was boosted during the first week by the widespread attention to Serena Williams - who was featured three times in prime time plus in a doubles match with her sister Venus - who most believe was playing her final tournament and in the second week by matches with Frances Tiafoe, Coco Gauff and eventual men's champion, Carlos Alcaraz. (See individual match viewership notes below.)
The semifinal between Alcaraz and Tiafoe on Friday, Sept. 9, averaged 2.96 million viewers - peaking at 3.6 million - for the five-plus hour telecast that started at 7 p.m. ET. That is up 66% from the equivalent telecast in 2021 and ranks as ESPN's ninth biggest tennis audience on record. It is also ESPN's sixth best from the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, N.Y. (coverage began in 2009). It is ESPN's biggest tennis audience for a match from a Major event that did not include the legends of the last 20 years - Novak Djokovic, Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Serena Williams. Not only is it the only semifinal in ESPN's top 10 tennis audiences, but when combined with the afternoon semifinal, Casper
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
23/07/2026
Evergent (5.A86) will showcase its Agentic Revenue Orchestration Platform for streaming services, sports leagues, pay-TV operators at IBC2026 (RAI Amsterdam, 11...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
23/07/2026
David Dvir, 2D founder (left), Sundeep Reddy (center), and Jean-Marc Bouchut (right), both of Zeiss...
23/07/2026
Screen Australia announces new national documentary accelerator program 23 July 2026
Screen Australia has today announced the Above the Line Documentary Accel...
23/07/2026
RT Commercial today announced Honda as sponsor of Today with David McCullagh RT Radio 1, weekdays 9am 11am.
Broadcasting directly after Morning Ireland in ...
23/07/2026
RT News is pleased to announce Barry Gallagher has been assigned as the new journalist covering news from Cork, Kerry and the wider Southern region
Working al...
23/07/2026
Lock in and load up the cloud. GFN Thursday brings fresh updates and new adventu...
22/07/2026
Among other tweaks to coverage, the broadcaster added announce positions in the ...
22/07/2026
The Australian Sports Technologies Network (ASTN) has reported a sharp acceleration in Australia's sportstech sector, with revenue growth rising from 10% in...
22/07/2026
From a retrofitted broadcast bus to packed Match Day Live! events, Bennett detai...
22/07/2026
TMRW Sports has named Brendan Donohue as President, Flag Football, where he will lead the company's professional flag football business in partnership with ...
22/07/2026
Stephen Arnold Music (SAM) designed and produced soundtracks for nine projection...
22/07/2026
Harmonic has announced a $25,000 donation to Global Empowerment Mission (GEM) fo...
22/07/2026
Telemundo has announced it has acquired from UC3 exclusive U.S. Spanish-language...
22/07/2026
The Rest Is Football, hosted by Gary Lineker, Alan Shearer, and Micah Richards, ...
22/07/2026
Sports Studio has announced a partnership with TheSoul Group to distribute Free ...
22/07/2026
Daktronics has concluded its 2026 High School Video Summit, a two-day hybrid event combining virtual sessions with hands-on host school visits across the countr...
22/07/2026
FOR-A America will exhibit at the MMCA Show in Pensacola, Florida (July 21-24), marking the company's first appearance at the house of worship AV event. FOR...
22/07/2026
The New York Yankees have selected Lumen Technologies (NYSE: LUMN) to connect Ya...
22/07/2026
Calrec will exhibit at IBC 2026 (Stand 8.C47) with demonstrations of its IP-native audio ecosystem built around the Argo console range, and will announce two ne...
22/07/2026
Solid State Logic has announced the appointment of Algam EKO as its distributor for SSL large format consoles in Italy, covering the Live, Broadcast, and Studio...
22/07/2026
FloSports has announced the launch of the FloSports Channel, a free ad-supported streaming channel premiering on Prime Video in the U.S. on July 21. The channel...
22/07/2026
Banana Ball TV (BTV), the broadcast operation of the Savannah Bananas, has insta...
22/07/2026
SiriusXM and Audacy have announced an agreement bringing 42 Audacy sports, news, and talk stations from 29 U.S. markets to SiriusXM. Twenty-three Audacy sports ...
22/07/2026
The collaboration produced more than 500 short-form videos across four cities th...
22/07/2026
At 2,600 sq. ft., the new home of digital content houses a main studio, podcast space, and an auxiliary control room
NFL franchises are accelerating their prod...
22/07/2026
Library now available in Engine Player
Another of Eduardo Tarilonte's popular sample libraries has just been moved over to Engine Audio's Engine Pla...
22/07/2026
All-in-one mic & DSP interface overhauled
Cloudvocal have just refreshed the design of their all-in-one mic, audio interface and DSP processor, introducing ...
22/07/2026
The final boss of the lost dual-op-amp circuit
Electro-Harmonix have just introduced the Deluxe Big Muff Pi 2, which they say offers their latest take on t...
22/07/2026
eds3_5_jq(document).ready(function($) { $(#eds_sliderM519).chameleonSlider_2_1({ content_source:......
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Proven managed IP solution helps broadcasters confidently navigate the future of broadcast distribution
LTN announces it has completed successful satellite-to-...
22/07/2026
Today, Chaos announced V-Ray 7, update 4, eliminating the need for asset conversions and tool switching, which slow down media and entertainment pipelines. Arti...
22/07/2026
An AI playground for the Project Indigo camera app
Marc Levoy July 22, 2026
0 Comments
At left is the user interface of our Playground, running on an ...
22/07/2026
Custom Consoles announces the completion of a large technical furniture project for Radio T l vision Suisse (RTS) at the networks recently inaugurated productio...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
22/07/2026
Culver City, CA, July 21, 2026 3D streaming infrastructure provider Miris today announced glTF intake, including the binary .glb form, to its spatial streamin...
22/07/2026
Documentary Lo Invisible Captured with Blackmagic PYXIS 6K
Brie Clayton July 21, 2026
0 Comments
Camera's versatile design allowed filmmakers to c...
22/07/2026
AAF Bridge converts AAF and XML Timelines to Ableton Live - and back
Jerome Gardier July 21, 2026
0 Comments
A two-way converter for macOS and Windows...
22/07/2026
From Class to Concert: Explore a Student-Led Production of David Bowies Work Thr...
22/07/2026
NVIDIA founder and CEO Jensen Huang today visited the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California, to commission an NVIDIA DGX GB300 system - bringing one...
Ratings Roundup: ESPN's Monday Night Football Nabs Nearly 20 Million Viewers, Alabama-Texas is 2022's Most-Watched CFB Game on Any Network By SVG Staff 
