With a World Cup, BCS title game, NBA Playoffs and Monday Night Football, ESPN should always be having good times in terms of ratings, but 2014 appears to be a better than usual year for The Worldwide Leader.
The network has averaged 1.012 million viewers in the past 12 months (October of last year to September of this year). That’s up six percent from this time last year. That means that at any given time of day (though mostly primetime) there could be a million people watching whatever’s on ESPN.
Other ESPN networks had a very good year. ESPNU had an audience record after increasing seven percent from 2013. ESPN Deportes grew most among the ESPN networks, with a 14 percent bump from the year before. That despite not having the Spanish-language rights to the World Cup.
The ESPN family of networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, ESPNews, ESPN Deportes, ESPN Classic) averaged 1.44 million viewers this year collectively, up from 1.38 million this time last year. Again, this is news that will shock no one, but ESPN remains the #1 brand in sports TV.
