Solid numbers for comparable FS2 programming, but very low for sports TV.
April 30, 2020 by Charlie Eisenhood in News with 0 comments
The first AUDL Game of the Week broadcast on Fox Sports 2 drew 20,000 viewers, according to the Nielsen ratings provided by sports ratings analyst Douglas Pucci.
The game was the third-most watched broadcast on FS2 that day (Wednesday, April 15th, 2020), and the 23rd most-watched telecast out of 129 on FS2 that week.
Those comparative numbers should be encouraging for the AUDL, particularly given the overall viewership numbers that FS2 gets: the channel’s average viewership in the last year was less than 20,000 for all but two of the last 52 weeks.
Still, the viewership is markedly lower than other televised ultimate broadcasts on bigger cable sports networks. USA Ultimate’s live ESPN2 debut from the 2017 US Open drew 150,000 viewers, and the College Championships broadcasts on ESPNU have averaged around 40,000-50,000 viewers since 2013.
The driving force behind ultimate’s television ratings, however, is simply the platform: viewership numbers from specific ultimate fans are a minor factor in the overall ratings, which are driven predominantly by general viewership on the channels. FS2 has long been an outpost for FS1 repeats and not much original programming. As a result, it is one of the lowest watched cable channels on television.
Sports television ratings have also fallen across the board during the coronavirus pandemic, as professional sports leagues have canceled competition for weeks.
The AUDL Game of the Week programming continued yesterday on FS2 with a broadcast of the Dallas Roughnecks v. Madison Radicals 2018 Championship game.
