NBC and USA averaged 632,000 viewers for first matches of the 2023-24 Premier League season (Friday through Monday), marking the most-watched opening weekend for the league since 2015. NBC had 748,000 for Aston Villa-Newcastle on Saturday (there was no NBC game to open last season). USA on Friday afternoon averaged 360,000 for Manchester City-Burnley, while Monday afternoon's Manchester United-Wolverhampton match averaged 457,000. Last year on opening weekend, USA had one game -- Chelsea-Everton on a Saturday afternoon – which averaged 629,000. On Sunday, Chelsea-Liverpool had an average minute audience of 947,000 viewers, delivering Peacock’s best Premier League streaming audience yet (previous record was 833,000 for Liverpool-Arsenal on April 9 last season).
IF THE GLOVER FITS...: The first event of the FedExCup Playoffs saw increases across all four rounds for CBS and Golf Channel last weekend. CBS drew 3.21 million viewers for the final round of the FedEx St. Jude Championship, which saw Lucas Glover win in a one-hole playoff over Patrick Cantlay. That’s up 8% over 2.97 million on NBC last year, when Will Zalatoris won in a one-hole playoff over Sepp Straka. CBS on Saturday averaged 1.9 million viewers for the third round of the PGA Tour event, up 1%. Friday’s second round on Golf Channel drew 630,000 viewers, up 17%, while the cable net’s first round coverage on Thursday averaged 557,000 (+16%).
YOUTH MOVEMENT: WWE’s “SmackDown,” “Raw” and “NXT” are seeing big gains among adults 18-34 this year to date. “SmackDown” is averaging 277,000 viewers in the demo, up 23%, while “Raw” is averaging 273,000 (+24%) and “NXT” is averaging 86,000 (+62%). In the 18-34 demo, “SmackDown” on Fox is the No. 1 show across TV on Friday nights in Q3 to date. Each of the three WWE programs also are seeing double-digit percentage upticks among adults 18-49.
NOTES: The NASCAR Cup Series race from Indianapolis Motor Speedway’s road course on Sunday drew 2.84 million viewers, down 16% from last year’s event….Bally Sports South drew a 5.35 local rating in Atlanta for Monday night’s Yankees-Braves game, marking the best regular-season MLB game for the RSN since a 5.91 for the Braves' NL East-clincher on Sept. 20, 2019 against the Giants.
The chart below lists viewership figures for select recent sports telecasts.
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