NBC Sports has a long and successful history with the English Premier League ever since they joined forces in 2013. NBC’s coverage has been acclaimed from their studio anchored by Rebecca Lowe to the quality of play-by-play voices from Arlo White to Peter Drury and Jon Champion.
And after a decade in business together, things only seem to be getting better for NBC and the Premier League. Last weekend’s top of the table clash between Liverpool and Arsenal drew the most viewers ever for a match in the ten year history of NBC’s Premier League coverage coming in at 1.96 million viewers across various television and streaming platforms.
Via NBC Sports:
NBC Sports’ presentation of Liverpool v. Arsenal on Saturday, Dec. 23, is the most-watched Premier League match in United States history, with 1.96 million viewers across NBC, Peacock and NBC Sports Digital platforms.
The five most-watched Premier League matches in U.S. history have aired across NBC Sports platforms in the 2023 calendar year.
Led by Peacock, Liverpool-Arsenal stands as the second most-streamed simulcast match of the 2023-24 season with an Average Minute Audience (AMA) of 464,000 viewers, just behind the mark of 509,000 viewers for Liverpool-Manchester United on Dec. 17.
When including Spanish-language viewership on Telemundo, Liverpool-Arsenal delivered a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) of 2.28 million viewers, the second most-watched match on record including Spanish-language viewership behind Arsenal-Manchester United (1/22/23; 2.31 million).
If there is one criticism of NBC’s Premier League coverage, it’s that they have shifted most of the best games every week exclusively behind the Peacock paywall. If you’re an EPL fan, you are pretty much required to have the streaming service on top of broadcast and cable to watch games across NBC, USA, and Peacock. And while the Peacock audience was large, it was still just 25% of the total viewership for the game, showing the power that broadcast coverage still carries.
This now means NBC has had their five most-watched EPL matches of all-time in the 2023 calendar year. Hopefully the numbers will encourage NBC to put more of their best games on broadcast television so that they can continue to see these numbers continue to increase.
