ratings Page 3 - Sports News, Headlines & Highlights

Miami GP suffers major ratings dip minus NBA lead-in
The Miami Grand Prix suffered a major drop in television audience for the fourth edition of the South Florida event on Sunday.,The race won by McLaren's Oscar Piastri drew an average of 2.17 million viewers on ABC, according to Nielsen ratings. That represented around a 30 percent drop from last yea...

Caitlin Clark still must-watch TV during preseason
It was a game that didn't count and still the remote controls were flipping over to watch Caitlin Clark.,Sunday's WNBA preseason game that featured Clark's return to Iowa was a big hit on ESPN. The contest between Clark's Indiana Fever and the Brazil women's national team drew 1.3 million viewers, m...

Kentucky Derby viewership climbs despite attendance dip
Saturday's Kentucky Derby surpassed last year's viewership total as the most-watched edition of the race since 1989, according to the early numbers.,Sovereignty's victory in the season's first Triple Crown race averaged 17.7 million viewers on NBC, according to a combination of Nielsen fast-national...

Shedeur Sanders' draft plummet drives massive TV ratings
Shedeur Sanders' dramatic drop contributed to a massive television ratings boost for the 2025 NFL Draft.,The Colorado quarterback, a projected top-five pick, eventually plummeted all the way to the fifth round.,Friday night's coverage of the second and third rounds averaged 7.4 million viewers, up 4...

Opening weekend of NBA playoffs scores best ratings in 25 years
The 2025 NBA playoffs drew the best ratings for an opening weekend in 25 years, the league announced Tuesday.,The eight-game slate on Saturday and Sunday averaged 4.4 million viewers, a 17-percent increase from a year ago.,The six games on the ABC/ESPN platforms averaged 4.9 million viewers, making ...

WNBA Draft audience second best ever, down from 2024
The WNBA Draft pulled in its second largest television audience Monday with an average of 1.25 million viewers, according to ESPN.,The broadcast peaked at 1.46 million viewers and was up 119 percent, on average, from the 2023 WNBA Draft. UConn's Paige Bueckers was the No. 1 overall selection Monday ...

Final round of Masters draws big ratings for CBS Sports
Rory McIlroy took viewers on a wild ride this past weekend at the Masters, with the end result being the completion of a career Grand Slam for the Northern Irishman and big ratings for CBS Sports.,Per the network, Sunday's final round averaged 12.707 million viewers -- which is up 33 percent from 20...

LIV Golf's record ratings still dwarfed by PGA Tour event
LIV Golf's first event in the United States of 2025 brought record viewership for the league, with 484,000 people tuning in to watch Marc Leishman's triumph in Miami on Sunday.,Unfortunately for the breakaway league, that was still less than a third of the amount of people who opted to watch a stand...

NCAA Tournament's Sunday Elite Eight flops with TV viewers
The Elite Eight of the NCAA Tournament was not a big hit with March Madness viewers.,The regional finals on Saturday and Sunday saw all four No. 1 seeds advance to the Final Four and they averaged just 9 million viewers on CBS, TBS and truTV, a 10 percent drop from last year's tournament.,According ...

Women's NCAA tourney attendance down 30% from record '24
The women's NCAA Tournament is chock full of new stars, but attendance through the first two rounds has dropped significantly minus last year's household names including Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese.,It was always going to be difficult to match last year's record numbers, which saw a total of 292,4...

NCAA Tournament ratings hit records despite lack of upsets
The lack of upsets during the first week of the NCAA Tournament led to discourse about whether NIL and the transfer portal are hurting the sport in the long run.,None of that stopped the tournament from hitting some record numbers for viewership.,The first two rounds of the tournament averaged 9.4 m...

UNC's First Four win draws record TV ratings
While North Carolina's addition to the NCAA Tournament was deemed controversial, there is no denying the program's March pedigree and it was evident in record First Four television ratings on Tuesday.,According to Front Office Sports, North Carolina's 95-68 victory over San Diego State in an NCAA To...

Australian GP scores record ratings for ESPN
The Australian Grand Prix was watched by more than 1.1 million viewers on ESPN, setting a record for Formula 1's season-opening event, according to the network.,It beat the previous mark of 659,000 viewers in 2019, and was up 541,000 from last year's race broadcast on ESPN2. The 2025 race, which beg...

Alex Palou's win in IndyCar opener scores FOX huge ratings
Alex Palou took the checkered flag at the St. Petersburg Grand Prix on Sunday, while Fox Sports raked in a huge spike in television ratings.,The broadcaster reported 1.4 million viewers tuned into IndyCar's 2025 season opener across Fox Sports and its streaming services, which represented a 45 perce...

Daytona 500 draws mixed ratings amid rain delays
The Daytona 500 carried the sports calendar over the busy Presidents' Day weekend, but the "Great American Race" still suffered a ratings hit.,After waiting out a nearly four-hour rain delay, the 41-car field resumed under the lights on Sunday, putting it up against the NBA All-Star Game. Despite th...

Record 182.8M tuned into Super Bowl LIX
A record 182.8 million unique viewers turned into Super Bowl LIX for at least one minute, according to new Nielsen data released on Tuesday.,Nielsen previously announced that the Philadelphia Eagles' 40-22 win against the Kansas City Chiefs on Feb. 9 in New Orleans averaged a record 127.7 million vi...

Luka Doncic's Lakers debut scores ESPN huge ratings
Luka Doncic's debut with the Los Angeles Lakers scored massive ratings for ESPN despite coming in a game that started at 10:30 p.m. ET and whose result was never in doubt. ,The network's audience for Monday night's game -- a 132-113 Lakers victory over the Utah Jazz -- peaked at 2.55 million viewers...

Fox Sports' LIV Golf debut draws miniscule ratings
Fox Sports' debut event for LIV Golf produced meager ratings for the broadcaster at the league's 2025 season-opening event.,Fox averaged only 40,200 viewers for the final round played under the lights in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which began at 10 a.m. ET Saturday. While FS1 averaged 54,000 viewers betw...

Super Bowl LIX draws record 127.7 million viewers
A record 127.7 million viewers watched the Philadelphia Eagles defeat the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 in Super Bowl LIX on Sunday, according to the official Nielsen numbers released Tuesday.,The game in New Orleans aired on Fox, Fox Deportes and Telemundo and streamed on Tubi and drew a combined averag...

Fox projections put Super Bowl viewership at record high
Despite the Super Bowl being a blowout, an average of 126 million U.S. viewers tuned in to see the Philadelphia Eagles thrash the Kansas City Chiefs 40-22 on Sunday, according to estimates Monday from Fox Sports.,The game in New Orleans was available for viewing on Fox, Telemundo, Fox Deportes, Tubi...