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2015By Ken Fang on

Starting at 9 a.m. ET Sunday and running until 1:12 a.m. ET Monday, Fox aired over 16 hours of sports programming. It began with the coverage of the Detroit-Kansas City game in London in the morning, then a regional NFL window at 1 p.m. ET which ran into the national Seattle at Dallas game and finally World Series-clinching Game 5 in primetime.

Fox CEO James Murdoch told investors during an earnings call on Wednesday that the company drew $100 million in revenue on what was the most-viewed day on the network outside of the Super Bowl. The Seattle at Dallas game is the most-watched NFL game of the season with 29.4 million viewers. World Series Game 5 between the Kansas City Royals and New York Mets averaged 17.2 million.

During the earnings call, Murdoch said, “We had a really tremendous day of sports on the network and on FS1. And all in, it was a $100 million day. So that’s pretty good.”

Fox is saying that overall, a record of over 16 billion minutes of sports was consumed Sunday with the three NFL windows and the World Series plus pregame and studio programming for both football and baseball.

Fox Sports President Eric Shanks said in a press release that there’s nothing like live programming to draw an audience:

“We were on the air for more than 16 hours from two continents and nine different cities, and a day like Sunday proves that live big-event sports television is still the best option to attract sizable audiences over an extended period of time.” 

Fox also broke down the minutes consumption in the following chart:

Program Duration (Minutes) Audience Consumption (Minutes)
Fox NFL Sunday 34 2,312,880 78,637,920
Detroit at KC (London) 184 8,418,568 1,549,016,512
Fox NFL Sunday 25 9,999,855 249,996,375
NFL – Regional 200 16,597,615 3,319,523,000
Seattle at Dallas (national) 190 29,390,012 5,584,102,280
The O.T. 16 18,136,067 290,177,072
World Series Pregame 15 16,588,337 248,825,055
World Series Game 5 259 17,193,992 4,453,243,928
World Series Postgame (Projection) 37 9,200,000 340,400,000
TOTAL 960 127,837,326 16,113,922,142

So Fox had a big sports day and it paid off in revenue and viewership.

[Sports Business Daily]

About Ken Fang

Ken has been covering the sports media in earnest at his own site, Fang's Bites since May 2007 and at Awful Announcing since March 2013.

He provides a unique perspective having been an award-winning radio news reporter in Providence and having worked in local television.

Fang celebrates the four Boston Red Sox World Championships in the 21st Century, but continues to be a long-suffering Cleveland Browns fan.

View all posts by Ken Fang

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