Who watches NFL, by the #s

Who watches
NFL, by the #s

Demos to die for compared to other pro sports

By Kevin Canfield

   Who watches the NFL?
   It's a logical question to ask given the divergent ratings reports for the season's first week, when ABC's "Monday Night Football" was down, despite the addition of John Madden to the broadcast booth, while ESPN's numbers skyrocketed.
   Though "MNF," the league's most visible telecast, has slipped in viewership each year since the mid-90s, football still has the most enviable fan demographics of any major sports league.
   According to interviews and network viewing profiles, the average NFL viewer makes about $55,000 a year. That's compared to about $48,000 for the average NHL viewer, $43,000 for baseball and $39,000 for the NBA.
   Like Major League Baseball, as well as basketball and hockey, two of every three viewers of NFL games are male.
   NFL football also enjoys a younger crowd. The women who watch football are significantly younger, than those who watch baseball. The average female viewer of NFL games is 46. For baseball it's 56.
   The average male viewer of football on Fox is 44 while Fox's average baseball viewer is 50. For ESPN, those figures are 43 and 49.
    In short, "Football has demographics that baseball would kill for," as one CNN financial analyst said recently.
   It's not surprising that football's audience is younger than MLB in just about every demographic grouping. Baseball, unlike football, has done little to cultivate a younger audience, and what efforts it has made on that front have met mixed success.
    But that said, neither sport does well with potential future fans, America's teenagers.
   Teens make up just 4 percent of the audience for each. But according to a detailed analysis supplied by Fox Sports, 18- to 34-year olds made up 22 percent (15 percent male; 7 percent female) of the NFL's viewers for games broadcast on Fox and CBS last season, compared to 17 percent (13 male; 4 female) for Fox's baseball coverage.
   Twenty-nine percent (20 male; 9 female) of the NFL's viewers fall in the 35-49 age range; for baseball it's 22 percent (14 male, 8 female).
   Most telling, though, is the comparison of older viewers. More than half - 51 percent -- of baseball's viewers are at least 50 years old, and 30 percent are 65 or older. For football, 40 percent who watch are 50 or older and just one in six - 17 percent - are at least 65.
   In coming years, football could see its market supremacy weakened, if only a bit, by basketball and maybe even hockey. Six percent of the NBA's audience are teens and more than one in three--35 percent--of those who watch basketball are under 50.
   The NFL, though, is more popular with African-Americans than is the NBA. Blacks made up 12.8 percent of the audience for pro football last year compared to 9.2 percent for basketball.
   Hockey has a long, long way to go in terms of total viewers. With a paltry 2002 All-Star Game rating of 1.8, the NHL is below the radar of many viewers.
   But hockey has reason for hope. A full 54 percent of those who tuned in to the NHL on ABC last year were under 50.

September 13, 2002Š 2002 Media Life

-Kevin Canfield is a writer in Connecticut.

Printer-Friendly Version | Send to a Friend
Cover Page | Contact Us