The NFL announced record viewership for the 2019 NFL draft.
According to the league, the average audience for all three days of the draft on ESPN, ABC and NFL Network was 6.1 million viewers. That’s an average viewership at any minute of any point in the draft; the first round topped 11 million viewers while viewership for the third day of the draft was obviously significantly lower.
That 6.1 million figure tops the 5.5 million viewers the NFL announced last year. The NFL also announced that this year’s draft had a total viewership of more than 47.5 million viewers over three days. That’s an increase over the number last year 45.4 million, although multi-day events are rarely measured by total viewership and it’s tough to make any meaningful comparison between that number and total viewership for other major sporting events.
The NFL also said there were 600,000 fans in attendance, although that number too is difficult to assess: The draft was an outdoor event in a public place and also included musical performances, and it’s unclear how many of those claimed 600,000 fans were there for the NFL and how many were Nashville residents or tourists in the area for reasons other than football.
Those details aside, the NFL draft has undeniably become a huge event, one of the biggest on the American sports calendar, and the challenge in Las Vegas next year will be to make it even bigger.
