Friday (2/16) sports viewership: NBA Celebrity Game tops night – Sports Media Watch
The NBA All-Star Celebrity Game and Rising Stars Challenge topped the sports viewership charts for Friday, February 16.
Friday’s NBA All-Star Celebrity Game averaged 1.57 million viewers on ESPN, up 12% from last year (1.40M) and the largest audience for the event since 2018 (1.7M). (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not factored into Nielsen estimates prior to 2020.) The annual exhibition was the most-watched sportscast of the day.
All-Star Weekend took the top two spots Friday night, as the NBA Rising Stars Challenge averaged a combined 1.07 million across TNT (951K) and truTV (118K) — up 20% from last year on TNT alone (888K). All four of the major NBA All-Star events (the Celebrity Game, Rising Stars Challenge, All-Star Saturday Night and the All-Star Game) increased double-digits over last year.
Placing third for the night, the NASCAR Truck Series season opener from Daytona averaged 1.06 million on FS1 — up 3% from last year (1.03M). Top Rank Boxing ranked fourth with 706,000 on ESPN, up 54% from NHL action in the same post-Celebrity Game timeslot last year (458K).
Golf rounded out the top five, as second round coverage of the PGA Tour at Riviera averaged 622,000 — down 30% from last year (887K).
Further down the dial, FS1 averaged 241,000 for New Mexico-San Diego State following its NASCAR race, up 54% from the same window last year. ARCA racing from Daytona — originally scheduled for Saturday but moved up to late Friday night due to weather — averaged 203,000 for the full race on FS2, plus an additional 120,000 for the final half on FS1.
In college softball, ESPN2 drew 156,000 for Stanford-Texas and 93,000 for Tennessee-Stanford earlier in the day. Sandwiched between, a VCU-Saint Louis men’s college basketball game averaged 130,000 and a California-Philadelphia Premier Lacrosse League match averaged 34,000. Over on BTN, an Ohio State-Michigan State wrestling match averaged 60,000, followed by Wisconsin-Minnesota at 58,000.
Friday, February 16 sports viewership
