Viewership of the NFL draft on Thursday night was down from the 2010 version of the annual selection meeting. SportsBusiness Journal got numbers from the NFL that combined viewership on ESPN and NFL Network was about 7 million, a 16% drop from last year's 8.3 million, while the combined rating was 5.1 (8 share), which was down 22%. It's the first significant bit of TV viewership losses in some time for the NFL. The league had seen exploding TV numbers in recent. A record average of 17.9 million viewers watched each NFL game last season and Super Bowl XLV was the most-watched show in TV history with 100.9 million viewers. Source: USA Today
And the fact it kicks off pretty late as well (on a Thursday night). No one wants to spend three hours + at night on a week day waiting for names to be called out. I much preferred the previous system with it starting on the Saturday Afternoon, with the first two rounds on the same day.
Draft should have never been moved to weekdays. It'll probably take a few years of rating drops before they would consider changing it back though.
Crap...I forgot about that... Good thing for the DVR!! Its not surprising that the ratings were down. It's a lot harder for people to catch three days/nights worth of name calling. I like it at night b/c the kids are sleeping and I can watch it in peace. But if I had a choice, I preferred the old way...
I can see why. But I love football especially evaluating prospects and all that crap so I won't miss it.
I discovered this year it's a hell of alot more entertaining to listen to it on ESPN radio. Alot more Mel Kiper Jr assesments of both team needs and player evals and alot less of Gruden being a freaking idiot and spitting on himself and the camera. Plus no waiting 6 minutes for the pick you already know because you saw them on the phone the second it rang.
