2020 Sports Ratings Fall

As we all know, COVID-19 has affected the entire world in so many negative ways. I still remember back in March/April when the NBA and NHL seasons were suddenly halted because of a pandemic, especially one we couldn’t yet comprehend would affect for as long as it has. I was one of the many people saying that sports should come back over the summer. Eventually the NBA came back in a bubble setting in which players could not leave a certain sector of Florida, the NHL did something similar and Major League Baseball had a shortened 60 game season. All three leagues did not allow fans into the stands as the teams rebooted their seasons. Baseball teams began allowing fans in a limited capacity late, particularly when the playoffs started. Having been one of the people who wanted sports to come back… I have regretted that decision, and clearly I’m not the only one.

All across the board, ratings, and viewership across all of sports are down this year in historic numbers. The NBA finals viewership numbers are horrific to look at. The Lakers-Heat series averaged just 6.7 million views overall, with around 5.7 million tuning into the final game of the series, and 7.4 million tuning into game one (A record low since 1988). However, these are just television views as reports suggest that the NBA social media numbers were more welcoming with around 321 million views of NBA content coming through YouTube. With about 61 million of those views resulting from Finals content. So while online viewership was high, the money-making TV ratings tanked this year for basketball’s biggest event.

Some individuals have laid blame on the NBA supporting the “Black Lives Matter” movement, but the reason is strictly due to the fact that the games weren’t exciting. The games weren’t exciting because not having fans makes it tougher to watch. There is no energy in any of these games across all sports because stands are either empty or at a lower capacity.

TV viewership for the NHL finals were also at a record low, averaging just over 2 millions viewers with 2.34 million tuning into the series clinching game. These numbers are the lowest in the sport since the 07 Finals.

Game one of the World Series became one of the least watched first games in the history of the sport with 9.1 million viewers. And the numbers over the next couple games aren’t much better with reports saying Game 5 posting just 10.6 million viewers.

For the record NFL viewership has also been lower than usual, but have rebounded over the last couple weeks. But regularly NFL games are posting close to 15 million viewers for most games (other than their primetime games which are much lower than normal). Still, their numbers for Regular season games are significantly better than most championship games in other sports leagues this year.

People like me who prayed for sports to come back this year have come to regret it and the numbers are showing it. More people are choosing not to tune into sports this year, and of course, there are many factors. The pandemic has lessened our interest in things, that’s been a factor. And on top of everything else, we’re in the middle of the most polarizing election year, probably of our lifetime. So I look at the numbers networks are reporting and go… Those make sense.

There’s not a huge desire to watch sports right now, even though we might watch some plays/highlights on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram. Like everything else sports are having a down year, and that’s okay… for us at least. TV networks are in trouble with these historically low numbers and it will be interesting to see how this year affects the future of how we watch sports