While the last week and a half has been pretty light for sports debate shows, FS1’s Undisputed hit a sad new low on Tuesday morning.
The show has been plagued by falling viewership in the past year after the departure of Shannon Sharpe and reformatting with Skip Bayless as the moderator joined by a rotating set of panelists that features Keyshawn Johnson, Michael Irvin, and Rachel Nichols among others. Richard Sherman was featured prominently but hasn’t been seen since his recent DUI arrest.
Per Sports Media Watch, the show averaged a record-low 50,000 viewers for its Tuesday, February 27 edition.
Tuesday's edition of FS1's "Undisputed" was the least-watched in its new format with just 50,000 viewers. (I would assume that 49,000 of those were aggregators trawling for content.): https://t.co/V3psb7d4pv
— Sports Media Watch (@paulsen_smw) February 29, 2024
On the same day in the same window, ESPN’s First Take averaged 486,000 viewers. That’s way down from its average of a record 680,000 in January, but still nearly ten times the audience for Undisputed. To close 2023, First Take‘s audience was smashing Undisputed between four and five to one daily.
Viewership for Undisputed on Monday was not available. The show took the week of February 19 off.
This isn’t an isolated gap for Tuesday, either. During the week of February 12, the week after the Super Bowl, First Take‘s initial broadcast on ESPN averaged 548,000 viewers compared to just 78,000 for Undisputed, a seven-to-one gap. The week before, First Take averaged 479,000 viewers on ESPN compared to 74,000 for Undisputed, a more than six-to-one gap. Given that all of the usual debate shows were in full force those weeks, it’s a pretty damning indictment of Undisputed‘s audience.
