4 Thoughts on Live Sports Ratings Last Week

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This past week brought the return of the NBA and NHL to go along with MLB. Here are four thoughts on the live sports ratings from the week which began Monday, July 27th and concluded Sunday, August 2nd. Numbers are via Showbuzz Daily.

1) Golf and NASCAR do better versus NBA, MLB, and NHL than you might think.



2) MLB and NBA split their head-to-head weekend matchups.


3) Baseball regional ratings have been strong so far. 

Per the Wall Street Journal: "Regional sports networks saw a 31% increase in viewership over the MLB opening weekend compared with the previous season, according to Nielsen. Through July 29, ratings across 25 markets were up 18%."

4) Football is already missed. 

Last year on August 1st, the NFL Hall of Fame game (Broncos-Falcons) averaged 5.3 million viewers on NBC. This is for a much-maligned preseason game, which would've more than doubled every sporting event that aired this past week except for Lakers-Clippers. Regular season and playoff games often do 3, 4, 5 times multiples of this Hall of Fame Game number. Pray that this football season gets salvaged in some form because if it doesn't the entire sports and sports media ecosystem will be on very shaky ground.






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Ryan Glasspiegel grew up in Connecticut, graduated from University of Wisconsin-Madison, and lives in Chicago. Before OutKick, he wrote for Sports Illustrated and The Big Lead. He enjoys expensive bourbon and cheap beer.