Decades ago, the National Football League passed Major League Baseball as the most lucrative sports organization in the world. The NFL Draft, which begins tonight in Las Vegas with the first round and runs through Saturday, offers another major reminder why.
Millions of Americans care, and they care a lot, even when games aren’t being played.
As a television product, the NFL draft — and the highly publicized first round, in particular — now routinely draws a larger TV/streaming audience than all but a few of the most prominent GAMES offered by America’s other favorite sports.
For example, last April, the first round drew an average audience of approximately 12.5 million viewers across four broadcast channels (ABC, ESPN, ESPN Deportes and the NFL Network) and their corresponding digital platforms.
To put that number in perspective, last year’s World Series between the Atlanta Braves and the Houston Astros averaged approximately 11.7 million viewers per game, last year’s NBA Finals between the Milwaukee Bucks and the Phoenix Suns averaged approximately 9.9 million viewers per game, and last year’s Stanley Cup finals between the Tampa Bay Lightning and the Montreal Canadiens averaged approximately 2.4 million viewers per game.
Yes, you heard that correctly. An offseason NFL event, in which not a pass is thrown nor a tackle made, attracts a larger first-night audience than the most important ACTUAL GAMES in the CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES of America’s other three most popular professional team sports.
Thanks to recently signed multi-media contracts worth approximately $10 billion per year all the way through the 2033 season, the NFL is expected to become — within the next few years — the first sports organization ever whose collective annual revenues surpass $20 billion.
The Super Bowl often draws an American TV/streaming audience of more than 100 million viewers, and in recent years, NFL games — including many of the regular-season variety — have produced a large majority of the most watched TV events in America, and that includes cable or network broadcasts, sports or non-sports programming.
The powerful draw of the NFL can be similarly impressive during its offseason, and there’s no sign of that interest slowing down. The three most watched NFL drafts in history were the last three, with 8.3 million average viewers (over the three-day draft) in 2020, 6.2 million in 2019 and 6.1 million in 2021.
Featured image via CBS Sports
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