Monday night’s Chargers-Cardinals game on ESPN+ generated a pivot-to-streaming pathetic 1.8 million viewers, even with the over-the-air audiences in L.A. and Phoenix factored in.
The folks at Sports Business Journal have provided some context.
It’s the first officially reported audience below two million since a Raiders-Chargers game in 2008. Oakland was 3-9 and San Diego was 4-8 and the game was a 34-7 blowout.
As noted by SBJ, other games in the interim have not had audience numbers released or reported. ESPN never disclosed the audience for the popular-in-media-circles ESPN+ Jaguars-Falcons Toy Story alternate broadcast in 2023. In 2017, the NFL never released viewership figures for a Ravens-Jaguars game televised exclusively by Yahoo.
Two years earlier, Yahoo said 15.2 million unique visitors worldwide streamed a Bills-Jaguars game. That’s a far cry from the average audience for the entirety of the game.
