Mets, Falcons Give Nielsen Dials a Workout on a Hectic Sports Night

As sports fans on Thursday night indulged in one of the wildest fall evenings in recent memory, the Nielsen dials got in a good workout.

Down 2-0 to the Brewers in the top of the ninth, with one out and runners at the corners, New York Mets first baseman Pete Alonso claimed his place on baseball’s eternal highlight reel by lacing a 3-1 changeup into the right-field seats at American Family Field. The struggling slugger’s season-salvaging home run sent the Mets to the NLDS, where they’ll face their rivals from Philadelphia in a best-of-five series.

Per Nielsen, the Mets’ victory served up an average delivery of 4.02 million viewers on ESPN, earning bragging rights as the cable network’s biggest MLB audience in three years. All told, the nine-game Wild Card round was the most-watched on record, drawing 25% more viewers than last season’s analogous telecasts.

Two hours after Alonso sent fans of the Amazins into a frenzy, the Atlanta Falcons put on a little arrhythmia-inducing show of their own against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Kirk Cousins and his bonkers stat line (42-of-58 passing, 509 yards, four touchdowns and one interception) conducted a nail-biter of a late drive, setting up a 52-yard Younghoe Koo field goal that sent the game into overtime. Having won the toss, Cousins subsequently connected with KhaDarel Hodge on a short pass that the receiver converted into a 45-yard score.

Final score: Falcons 36, Bucs 30. Amazon Prime’s Thursday Night coverage averaged 12.3 million viewers, and while the streamer’s deliveries were surprisingly understated, given the electrifying nature of the game, Thursday night’s production still managed to beat out the year-ago Bears-Commanders blowout by approximately 584,000 viewers.

The game peaked at 13.88 million viewers during the 9:30-9:45 p.m. ET quarter-hour.

While the NFC South tussle now stands as Amazon’s least-watched TNF outing of the season thus far—predictably enough, last week’s Cowboys-Giants game beat all comers with a draw of 16.22 million viewers—the NFL package is on pace to build on last year’s slate. Through the first four weeks of Thursday night play, Amazon is averaging 14.17 million viewers per game, up 5% versus the year-ago 13.54 million.

TNF also continues to draw a disproportionate number of younger adults each week. Season-to-date, the package is averaging 3.06 million adults 18-34 per game, good for 22% of Amazon’s total Thursday night deliveries. Among the adults-under-50 set, TNF is averaging 6.87 million viewers, as the dollar demo now accounts for nearly half (48%) of the overall audience. By way of comparison, NBC’s more popular Sunday Night Football showcase is averaging 7.52 million adults 18-49, good for a 36% share of the primetime window’s linear TV deliveries (21.02 million).

Proportionately, Amazon is also drawing a greater share of fans in the 18-49 demo than the Sunday afternoon national window shared by CBS and Fox. The two broadcasters are averaging 25.81 million viewers per week during the must-see 4:20 p.m. ET slot, of which 34%, or 8.88 million, are members of the key advertising demo.

The younger-skewing TNF crowd has been a key selling point for Amazon, as advertisers continue to chase after a cohort that has largely abandoned the traditional TV space. The median age of the TNF viewer is a sprightly 47.5 years, a good 7.2 years younger than the NFL’s current average across its legacy TV partners (54.7), and a full 16.6 years south of the broadcast primetime average (64.1).

Amazon returns next week with an NFC West battle between the 49ers and Seahawks. Both teams have been uncharacteristically low-key this season, with San Francisco appearing in just one national window so far (the Sept. 9 Monday Night Football opener against the Jets, which averaged 20.43 million viewers on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2), while Seattle had its first moment in the spotlight earlier this week on ABC. That 42-29 loss in Detroit averaged 15.03 million viewers opposite ESPN’s coverage of the Titans-Dolphins debacle (5.61 million).