Got the viewership numbers from Major League Soccer’s debut on NBC Sports Network. The game on Sunday between Dallas and New York garnered only 82,000 viewers according to the Twitter account, TV Sports Ratings, which is someone who has access to TV ratings information and has managed to anger various sports network public relations people. So this person obviously knows the business.
MLS (NY/DAL) on NBCS Sun=82k viewers. 9 hunting/fishing telecasts on channel that day had larger audience.
— TVSportsratings (@tvsportsratings) March 13, 2012
That is quite low and of course, was opposite the college basketball conference tournaments on CBS and ESPN, golf on NBC and NASCAR on Fox.
But as Sports Illustrated’s Grant Wahl is quick to point out, that’s still higher than MLS’ viewership on Fox Soccer for all of last year!!!
MLS audience for NBCSN was up 21% from 2011 season average on FSC.
— Grant Wahl (@GrantWahl) March 13, 2012
So with all the hype for MLS on NBC Sports Network, soccer still has a ways to go to make inroads on a busy sports weekend. We’ll see if those numbers go up when there’s less competition in the spring and summer.
