FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Tuesday, July 28th, 2020

NBC SPORTS DELIVERS MOST-WATCHED PREMIER LEAGUE SEASON IN FOUR YEARS

Manchester Derby on March 8 Ranks as Most-Watched Premier League Match in U.S. TV History

Washington, D.C. Tops Local Market Ratings for Full Season, Followed by Philadelphia, Tampa, Seattle and Baltimore

Innovative Season of Coverage Included Expanded Sunday Prematch Show, Increased Collaboration with Sky Sports, New “Premier League Mornings Live” Fan Festival Sites & Critically-Acclaimed Discussion of Race and Sports

STAMFORD, Conn. — July 28, 2020 – NBC Sports’ presentation of the longest Premier League season ever – spanning 352 days due to the coronavirus pandemic – concluded this past Sunday, July 26 as the most-watched Premier League season in four years, according to official national data provided by Nielsen and digital data from Adobe Analytics.

NBC Sports Group averaged a Total Audience Delivery of 462,000 viewers per match window for the 2019-20 season – marking the highest average Premier League viewership since 2015-16, and up 1% from last year (457,000) (does not include Spanish-language telecasts or NBC Sports Gold/Peacock streaming). Prior to the shutdown in mid-March, viewership was pacing 4% ahead of last season.

For the seventh consecutive year, all 10 Premier League matches on the season’s final Sunday were presented live, simultaneously (11 a.m.-1 p.m. ET) across the platforms of NBCUniversal, highlighted by games that determined a pair of Champions League berths and the relegation of two clubs.

The five Championship Sunday matches on television registered a combined Total Audience Delivery of 1.7 million viewers (does not include the five matches streamed on NBC Sports Gold/Peacock).

Premier League Viewership Highlights

    • Manchester United’s 2-0 win over Manchester City on Sunday, March 8 posted a Total Audience Delivery (TAD) average of 1.76 million viewers across all platforms – NBC, NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and Telemundo – to rank as the most-watched live Premier League match in U.S. history.
    • NBCSports.com and the NBC Sports app delivered 925.3 million live streaming minutesthe most all time – during the 2019-20 season. In addition, four of the 10 most-streamed Premier League matches of all time in the U.S. took place in 2019-20.

    • NBCSN registered a Total Audience Delivery average of 1.01 million viewers for the Aug. 11 Manchester United-Chelsea match – ranking as the most-watched opening weekend Premier League cable match ever in the U.S. and the most-watched cable match in four years.

    • New Year’s Day Premier League coverage set viewership milestones on NBCSN as Arsenal-Manchester United became NBCSN’s most-watched weekday match ever (721,000 viewers). NBCSN also delivered the most-watched New Year’s Day Premier League coverage ever, averaging 492,000 viewers across four matches.

    • NBCSN’s weekday afternoon matches during the Premier League’s Project Restart averaged 315,000 viewers – up 32% from weekday matches this season prior to the March shutdown (239,000), and 45% above the full 2018-19 season weekday afternoon average. In addition, since June 17, NBCSN televised four of the six most-watched weekday Premier League matches since 2014 (excluding holidays).

    • Premier League highlights on NBCSports.com, the NBC Sports app, and the NBC Sports channel on YouTube, and NBC Sports Soccer content across Twitter, Instagram and Facebook this season generated more than 200 million views – doubling last season’s total. In addition, downloads of The 2 Robbies podcast in 2020 increased 57% from last year, and from July 20-26, NBC Sports’ Pro Soccer Talk delivered its highest weekly traffic in four years.

    • Since kicking off its Premier League coverage in August 2013, NBC Sports Group has televised 18 of the 20 most-watched live Premier League matches ever in the U.S. across all platforms.

    • The free-to-play game Premier League Pick ‘Em continued to help grow the NBC Sports Predictor app userbase to more than 1.1 million fans, who have made over 14 million contest entries since the platform’s launch in December 2018.

 

Throughout the season, NBC Sports’ Premier League coverage featured a wide range of innovations and milestones.  Among the highlights:

    • EXPANDED SUNDAY “PREMIER LEAGUE MORNINGS” ON NBCSN: Beginning on the first weekend of the season, NBCSN expanded its Sunday prematch show to two hours (7-9 a.m. ET), providing increased coverage and discussion of breaking news, more feature stories, and additional in-depth analysis of all the action on the pitch.

    • INCREASED SKY SPORTS INTEGRATION: NBC Sports kicked off the 2019-20 Premier League season with increased content from and synergy with Sky Sports, featuring a new graphic look within the broadcast and in studio. In addition, on the day before the season began, NBC Sports produced its first-ever telecast from Sky studios in the U.K. as it presented Premier League Live: Transfer Deadline Day on NBCSN.

 

    • CRITICALLY-ACCLAIMED CONVERSATION ON RACE AND SPORTS: As news broke throughout the season, NBC Sports’ Premier League commentators spoke on race and sports, beginning on Oct. 19 as Rebecca Lowe and Robbie Earle discussed racist chants during a Bulgaria-England match. On Dec. 8, Lowe, Earle and Robbie Mustoe talked about reports of racist abuse from the prior day’s Manchester Derby. Poynter.org the next day called it “an honest discussion about racism in soccer in a rather strong segment during the network’s Premier League coverage.”


      Discussion continued in June on The 2 Robbies podcast, at the top of NBCSN’s prematch show on the day the Premier League returned to play on June 17, then five days later with Lowe, Mustoe and Kyle Martino at halftime and postgame of a match before which a “White Lives Matter” banner was flown by plane overhead, and on the next day’s prematch show with Lowe, Earle and Martino.

      The Athletic, in a June 29 story, led with a look at that coverage: “Sometimes there are moments that happen on sports television that knock the cynic out of you. You see something so authentic, so honest, so uncomfortably truthful that it reminds you of the massive power of the medium. Such a moment came last Tuesday during ‘Premier League Live.’”

 

    • “PREMIER LEAGUE MORNINGS LIVE” FAN FESTIVAL VISITS AUSTIN & MIAMI: NBC Sports and the Premier League partnered to welcome more than 17,000 supporters to fan festivals in Austin (October) and Miami (December), which featured Premier League-themed activities, events, merchandise giveaways, food, and special guest appearances. Fans in Austin celebrated Christian Pulisic’s first Premier League goals – three of them, in fact – as the U.S. Men’s National Team star scored a “perfect hat trick” with his left foot, right foot, and a header, for Chelsea. Supporters in Miami enjoyed a special appearance from former U.S. Women’s National Team coach Jill Ellis.

    • ARLO WHITE CALLS 400TH PREMIER LEAGUE MATCH FOR NBC SPORTS: Arlo White, alongside Lee Dixon and Graeme Le Saux, called his 400th Premier League match on Nov. 23, as Manchester City hosted Chelsea. Seven months later, White called 16 matches in a 40-day stretch to finish the season.

 

    • FIRST LIVE SPORTING EVENT ON PEACOCK: On Saturday, June 20, the Bournemouth-Crystal Palace match became the first live sporting event presented on Peacock – NBCUniversal’s new streaming service. Three weeks later, to celebrate Peacock’s national launch on July 15, NBC Sports’ full six hours of Premier League coverage was presented free on the platform. In the 2020-21 season, Peacock will be the exclusive home of up to 175 live matches and a total of 1,500 hours of Premier League programming, including full-event replays for all 380 matches on-demand (after 9 p.m. ET).

 

    • ROAD TRIP KICKS OFF THE SEASON: NBC Sports’ U.S.-based Premier League team once again opened the season on the road, as the entire announce team worked together on-location in the United Kingdom for the kickoff of the 2019-20 season.

 

    • SEASON #6 OF THE MEN IN BLAZERS SHOW: Hosted by popular soccer personalities Michael Davies and Roger Bennett, THE MEN IN BLAZERS SHOW returned for a sixth season with big-name guests including John Oliver and Steve Kerr. In addition, early-season shows were highlighted by a Sept. 15 episode from the British Embassy, featuring special guests Wayne Rooney, U.S. Women’s National Team star Rose Lavelle, and Deputy British Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Tatham.

 

    • ENHANCED SPANISH-LANGUAGE COVERAGE: Miami-based Telemundo Deportes – the exclusive Spanish language home of the Premier League in the U.S. – had its biggest-ever fan festival presence at the December Fan Fest on South Beach, with special production on location. In February, as part of the Premier League’s first “winter break” (one matchweek over a 10-day stretch, providing each club with a week off) Telemundo Deportes presented all matches in Spanish on Telemundo, Universo, or digitally – marking the first time an entire 10-game matchweek was presented in Spanish in the U.S.

 

Local TV Ratings

Following are the U.S. TV markets with the highest average season-long ratings on Premier League telecasts on NBC/NBCSN, and NBC only (note: all NBC games, other than on “Championship Sunday,” started at 12:30 pm ET/9:30 am PT or later, while some NBCSN games kicked off as early as 7 am ET/4 am PT):

Top 15 Local Market Ratings, NBC/NBCSN

1. Washington, D.C.
2. Philadelphia
3. Tampa
4. Seattle
5. Baltimore
6. New York
7. Cincinnati
8. San Francisco
9. Richmond
10. San Diego
11. Portland
12. Hartford
13. West Palm Beach
14. Las Vegas
15. Fort Myers

 

Top 15 Local Market Ratings, NBC only

1. Greenville
2. West Palm Beach
3. Cincinnati
4. Seattle
5. New Orleans
6. Washington, D.C.
7. Fort Myers
8. Richmond
9. Las Vegas
10. Baltimore
11. Portland
12. San Francisco
13. Albuquerque
14. St. Louis
15. Sacramento

 

The 2020-21 Premier League season kicks off on the weekend of September 12.

–NBC SPORTS–