Thursday Night Football got off to its best start in four years thanks to a down-to-the-wire NFC East rivalry game. Plus: figures for Ronaldo’s return to Manchester United and ESPN’s latest 30 For 30 premiere.
Giants-WFT most-watched TNF opener in four years
The season debut of Thursday Night Football (Giants-Washington FT) averaged a Nielsen-estimated 7.33 million viewers on NFL Network, the largest audience for the season opening edition of TNF since 2017 (Texans-Bengals: 8.08M). Ratings were not immediately available.
Washington’s last-second win increased 10% from last year, when coverage faced unusual NBA playoff competition (Bengals-Browns: 6.68M), and 10% from 2019 (Buccaneers-Panthers: 6.64M). Including additional streaming viewership not tracked by Nielsen (532K), it averaged 7.9 million (+9%).
Keep in mind that figures do not include viewership on local affiliates in the home markets.
Ronaldo debut sets USA record
Last Saturday’s Newcastle-Manchester United English Premier League match, which marked Ronaldo’s return to Man U, averaged a 0.30 rating and 537,000 viewers on USA — marking the largest audience ever for a Premier League match on the network. Including Spanish-language coverage on Universo and additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen, the match averaged 705,000.
United’s win was not the most-watched match of the weekend, trailing Aston Villa-Chelsea later that day on the NBC broadcast network (0.46, 802K).
Complete figures for Lionel Messi’s debut with Paris Saint Germain last month were not available, but that match averaged 197,000 on beIN Sports Espanol.
Quiet finish for Mets doc, but tops live MLB
The final two parts of the ESPN 30 For 30 documentary “Once Upon a Time in Queens” averaged 464,000 and 514,000 viewers Wednesday night, both down from the first two parts the night before (604K and 643K). The full four-part documentary averaged 556,000, down from the two previous multi-part 30 For 30 documentaries, “Lance” (807K) and “Vick” (811K) last year.*
While down from the night before, Wednesday’s episodes outdrew the lead-out program — a live Diamondbacks-Dodgers game (305K).
* Last year’s four-part 30 For 30 “The Life and Times of Oscar Pistorius” debuted on ESPN+ and as such no comparable figures are available.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 9.14, 9.16, 9.17, NBC Sports PR]
So only 305,000 watched a dodgers game? Was this an exclusive window? I don’t think so. So add in local ratings please. As for the Mets 30 for 30, any idea of the DVR ratings or an approximate? I’m guessing many watch it that way so they can FF commercials.
If I had the local numbers, I would include them. They’re (almost) never publicly available. All Nielsen figures include same day DVR.
Do the local affiliate numbers ever get revealed? I can’t remember if they’ve ever been released at a later date.
Not that I’m aware of. The first year CBS had the simulcasts, NFLN included the local+national comp. for the prior season. But that’s it.