From http://www.colts.com/images/news_photos/communitydynamic/2008yearinsports.pdf, here's a list of TV viewership for sporting events in the US last year: Super Bowl -- 97.5 million NFL playoffs avg. -- 32.9 Summer Olympics primetime avg. -- 27.7 BCS Nat'l Championship -- 23.1 NCAA men's BB finals -- 19.5 Rose Bowl -- 19.0 Daytona 500 -- 17.8 NBA Finals avg. -- 14.9 NFL regular season avg. -- 14.6 Kentucky Derby -- 14.2 World Series avg. -- 13.6 MLB All-Star Game -- 13.4 The Masters -- 11.0 NFL Pro Bowl -- 10.0 US golf Open Sat-Mon avg. -- 9.2 Home Run Derby -- 9.1 March Madness avg. -- 8.4 Indy 500 -- 7.2 NASCAR avg. -- 7.4 NBA All-Star Game -- 6.3 MLB playoffs avg. -- 5.7 Wimbledon men's final -- 5.2 NFL Draft Day 1 -- 4.8 NHL Stanley Cup finals avg -- 4.5 NBA playoffs avg. -- 4.1 Euro final -- 3.8 College football regular season avg. -- 3.8 NBA regular season avg. -- 1.6 MLB regular season avg. -- 1.6 UEFA Champions League finals -- 1.1 MLS championship -- 0.9 NHL All-Star game -- 0.9 NHL playoffs avg. -- 0.8 MLS All-Star game -- 0.5 NHL regular season avg. -- 0.4 MLS regular season avg. -- 0.3 MLS playoffs avg -- 0.2
MLS had better regular season average than playoffs MLB all star, Home Run Derby, Kentucky Derby, Indy 500 and Daytona 500 are all higher than I thought. US Open and Wimbledon should have been way higher those were some of the best US Opens and Wimbledon finals ever
Not too many surprises here, though as a baseball fan I find it disturbing that so many more people watch the Home Run Derby than watch actual games.
I think it's telling that the average regular-season NFL telecast got higher ratings than the average World Series game. Incidentally, the American Idol final got 31.7 million viewers and averaged 28 million per telecast, while Dancing with the Stars averaged about 19 million. Bottom line: NFL is the only sport with true mass appeal in the U.S. right now the same way that American Idol has mass appeal. The other sports are going after niche markets.
More people watch the NFL draft than the Stanley Cup. I thought it was interesting to see the drop in golf ratings between the US Open and the British Open/Ryder Cup. I'd be interested in seeing the demographic numbers. How does the age group breakdown for a sport like football compare to soccer? How about golf vs snowboarding?
British Open is hurt by the fact that its on really early in the morning to the afternoon while the US Open ends in primetime and had Tiger Woods in the hunt. Tiger is a HUGE factor in ratings. Ryder Cup was a 3 day average, one of them being during the day on Friday. Ryder Cup weekend is also during the NFL season
The document does have different colors in the graph for different age groups, but unfortunately the MLS bar is so small, you can't make out the different age groups. The NFL does well in all age groups.