Welcome to the latest installment of Dan Rayburn's Streaming Insights & Intelligence, a weekly insights column on StreamTV Insider where the industry analyst puts facts and figures to the news you need to know about. Join the discussion on LinkedIn and check back each week as he unpacks key industry happenings.
For the week of July 10, 2024, Rayburn is tracking some of the latest sports TV viewership numbers for live MLB, WNBA, and soccer events on ESPN, FOX/FS1, and CBS. See here for earlier viewership stats he tracked.
- ESPN generated its largest Sunday Night Baseball audience in two and a half years with the Boston Red Sox 3-0 victory over the New York Yankees on July 7. The broadcast averaged 2.35 million viewers and peaked with nearly three million viewers (2.95 million). Sunday Night Baseball has averaged 1.62 million viewers this season, up 6% from last season.
- FOX Sports said the UEFA European Championship Round 16 averaged 1.98 million viewers across FOX/FS1, up 18% compared to 2021. Through the Round of 16 the UEFA European Championship is averaging 1.24 million viewers across FOX/FS1, up 27% compared to 2021. New Orleans, Miami and San Diego were the top viewership markets.
- The July 6th WNBA game averaged 1.87 million viewers on CBS, up 215% from the same window last year. WNBA games on CBS are up 132% across the board so far this season, with an average of 1.37 million viewers.
- On July 1st, the U.S. men’s national team’s game with Uruguay in the final round of the Copa America soccer tournament drew an average of 3.78 million viewers on Fox Sports 1, peaking at 4.87M. The total marked the most-watched non-World Cup soccer game in network history, according to FOX Sports. Overall, Fox Sports says that its Copa America games have averaged 1.1 million viewers, up 411% compared with the 2021 tournament and 48% over the 2016 tournament to date.
- FOX Sports said the UEFA Euro 2024 Group Stage telecasts on FOX/FS1 were the most watched Group Stage telecasts ever on English language networks in the US, averaging 1.04 million viewers, up 30% from 2021.
- Disney says the India-South Africa T20 World Cup final match on Saturday, June 29th, peaked at 53 million concurrent users on Disney+ Hotstar, tying it for the second-largest cricket audience ever on the platform. The cricket World Cup 2023 final match on November 19, 2023, still stands as the record with 59 million peak concurrent viewers. You can see a list of the largest live events ever streamed on the internet here.
Dan Rayburn is an analyst in the streaming media industry, with regular TV appearances on CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Schwab Network amongst others. He is conference Chairman for the NAB Show Streaming Summit in Las Vegas each year, and his streamingmediablog.com website is one of the most widely read sites for broadcasters, content owners, OTT providers, Wall Street money managers, and industry executives. He also has a podcast at danrayburnpodcast.com. He can be reached at [email protected]
Dan Rayburn’s Streaming Analysis & Insights is an opinion column. It does not necessarily represent the opinions of StreamTV Insider.