Unsurprisingly, the NBC Sports Group had a big third quarter. With the Olympics on the airwaves of not just the main NBC network but also its subsidiary channels, NBCSN, the company’s sports network, hit high viewership marks from July through September.

NBCSN set single-quarter records in total day viewership and viewership in the 18-49 and 25-54 demographics. The network averaged 286,000 total-day viewers, 49 percent more than during last year’s third-quarter and 33 percent more than the previous record, held by the first quarter of 2014, in which NBCSN helped air the Sochi Olympics.

Meanwhile, NBCSN raised its audience in the 18-49 demo to 100,000 viewers per day (up 82 percent from last year, which NBC says is the largest third-quarter year-over-year increase of any cable network ever) and its viewership in the 25-54 demo to 113,000 (up 61 percent from last year).

Primetime viewership on NBCSN of the Paralympic Games rose from an average of 52,000 total-day viewers in 2012 to 143,000 this summer.

NBCSN was the most-viewed cable sports network during the month of August, marking the first time it has ranked first in a given month.

It is of course no surprise that this was the best third quarter ever for NBCSN, considering the network had just become an NBC property during the 2012 Olympics. NBCSN hasn’t quite caught on as a go-to sports network, even to the extent of the somewhat-disappointing FS1, but viewers can clearly find it on the dial when they need to.

As always, sports TV is all about broadcast rights. We go where the games are, and in August, the Games were on NBCSN.

About Alex Putterman

Alex is a writer and editor for The Comeback and Awful Announcing. He has written for The Atlantic, VICE Sports, MLB.com, SI.com and more. He is a proud alum of Northwestern University and The Daily Northwestern. You can find him on Twitter @AlexPutterman.

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