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.
Comments are closed.
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.