Despite a strong start on Thursday, the second night of the NFL Draft saw a decline in viewership, reaching its lowest Friday audience since 2012 with an average of only 5.1 million viewers. ABC led the way bringing in 2.69 million viewers, followed by ESPN2 at 1.57 million and NFL Network with 793,000. ESPN Deportes adds in another 14,000 for a total that was 9% less than the year before.
ESPN had previously aired part of Day 2 before shifting over to ESPN2, however this year the second day was solely on ESPN2. ESPN carried Game 3 of the NBA playoff series between the Milwaukee Bucks and Indiana Pacers. According to Jon Lewis from Sports Media Watch, ABC was slightly down, but ESPN2’s number is a 15% drop from last year while NFL Network saw a 20% decline. Lewis notes the NFL Network number for Friday’s draft coverage was their lowest since 2011.
On Thursday, night one of the NFL Draft had its best viewing audience in three years. According to numbers posted by Sports Business Journal’s Austin Karp, ESPN had 5.6 million viewers, while ABC had 4.5 million and the NFL Network and other digital streaming had 1.6 million. Add those numbers to what ESPN Deportes did and it comes out to around 12.1 million. The NFL and Nielsen said that 34.3 million viewers tuned in at some point to watch the first round.
