The 2021-22 Premier League season came down to its final day, and the title race came down to the final ~ten minutes of the season..
Championship Sunday tied a record for viewership on NBC’s networks, with the company claiming 2.2 million viewers in total across all platforms for the ten games. That includes a record 955,000 for Manchester City’s thrilling 3-2 win over Aston Villa on NBC and Peacock, and a cable-record of 681,000 for Liverpool’s 3-1 win over Wolves on USA.
For the season, the Premier League’s TV windows (NBC broadcast, USA, CNBC, and the dearly departed NBCSN) drew an average of 507,000 viewers across all platforms. Notably, only the NBC broadcast games were also available on Peacock, with the cable games living as cable-exclusive contests. That average is the second-best ever for the Premier League on US television, behind just NBC’s coverage of the 2015-16 season (this was Leicester’s shocking title-winning campaign, which averaged 514,000 viewers for its national windows).
NBC is also touting that 12 matches drew at least a million viewers across its platforms, up from the previous record of eight (2015-16, 2020-21). That also includes the second most-watched cable match ever, Manchester City vs Liverpool from April, and the most -watched Premier League match ever, Liverpool vs Chelsea from August.
Notably, NBC is using their “total audience delivery” metric, which hasn’t been used for the entire time the company has had the Premier League’s rights. Out of home viewership is also included in the data, which gives it boost over the pre-pandemic years.
Caveats aside, these are the type of headlines and statistics that NBC was craving when it dropped a reported $2.7 billion over six years to renew the Premier League’s TV rights last year.
