You don’t need any reminding that America loves to tune in for live sports, especially the NFL, but here’s your annual check-in of just how much.
Friday, Variety released its annual list of the year’s 100 most-watched primetime telecasts and it features many of the usual suspects when it comes to the programming that Americans love.
Of the 100 most-watched telecasts, 75 were sporting events, including 45 NFL games, 19 Summer Olympics broadcasts, four of the five NBA Finals games, and all five games of the World Series. That overall number is up from 56/100 a year ago.
The Dodgers-Yankees World Series made a huge return to these rankings after not making them for even one game last year. It was also worth noting that the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship made the list but the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship didn’t (this list doesn’t take into account simulcast numbers beyond networks).
NBC was the big network winner as Sunday Night Football and Summer Olympics coverage drove 38 broadcasts into the top 100. They were followed by CBS (25), ABC (12), Prime Video (10), Fox (9), ESPN (5) and Fox News (1).
Naturally, Super Bowl LVIII topped the list, followed by both conference championship games. You have to go down to No. 12 before you run into a non-NFL broadcast (the September 10 presidential debate).
The 45 NFL games in the top 100 were equal to the 2023 numbers and five better than 2022.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway from the list is that if you’re not watching CBS’s Tracker, you’re apparently the only one. The new CBS show, which premiered following the Super Bowl, took 15 spots on the list for 2024.
[Variety]
