The year 2025 may be the most important in ESPN’s history since its humble launch in Bristol more than four decades ago.
Later this year, ESPN will launch its brand new direct-to-consumer platform in a bid to address concerns about cord cutting and a dying cable industry. The company has also been considering various equity deals and partnerships (most notably with the NFL) that aim to reframe the business for the streaming era.
But at least at the start of the year, ESPN can look towards its future with some positive momentum.
ESPN says in an announcement that it averaged a whopping 868,000 viewers across the first 90 days of the year in 2025, its best average per-minute audience in the first quarter since 2017 and up an impressive 22% from just one year ago. Its biggest gains were seen in primetime.
ESPN delivered its most-watched Nielsen Quarter 1 (January – March) in eight years, one of many notable achievements for the company during the first three months of 2025.
Across its primary network, ESPN averaged 868,000 viewers during every minute of January, February and March (90 days). In addition to achieving its best Nielsen Q1 viewership since 2017, ESPN’s average-minute-audience was up 22% overall and 15% in the Persons 18-49 demo from Nielsen Q1 in 2024.
Isolating primetime (8-11 p.m. ET), ESPN averaged 2,299,000 viewers on each of the 90 nights, its best within the Nielsen Q1 since 2012. The nearly 2.3 million viewers is a 36% increase year-over-year.
You don’t have to look far to discover what led ESPN to such a large viewership increase through the first few months of the year. 2025 presented the first year of the expanded 12-team College Football Playoff. While TNT and ESPN were the beneficiaries of the extra round of games being played on campus in late December, there were still bonus games for ESPN in January.
Instead of just having one game after the traditional bowl season, ESPN got an extra semifinal round after the new year and the championship game. It also probably helped that ratings juggernauts like Ohio State, Texas, Notre Dame, and Penn State were involved.
The other massive event on ESPN airwaves that was more unpredictable was the 4 Nations Face-Off in February, which became an incredible success for hockey. The first in-season international tournament featuring the United States, Canada, Finland, and Sweden took the sports world by storm. It became a major cultural touchstone amidst tense international relations between the incoming Trump administration and our neighbors to the north.
A staggering 9.3 million viewers tuned in for the USA-Canada final, which the Canadians won in overtime. This is the largest hockey audience for a non-Olympic game in the modern era.
Over the last several years, ESPN’s strategy has been to invest heavily in major events and be willing to let other properties go, even if they have held onto them for ages (like Major League Baseball). But judging by these numbers in 2025, the strategy seems to be working.
About Matt Yoder