ESPN Gets Increase in Ratings after First Week at Wimbledon

Through the first six days of The Championships, ESPN and ESPN2 scored a 13% gain among guys 18 to 34, a 20% increase among males 18 to 49 and a 11% advance among men 25 to 54, compared to ESPN2 and NBC’s coverage over the corresponding span during the 2011 grass-court Grand Slam tournament, according to Nielsen.

Household impressions grew 8% to 569,000 during the programmer’s 10th year of Wimbledon coverage, while the rating for Bristol’s doubles team matched ESPN2/NBC’s 0.5 performance from a year ago, according to Nielsen.

Andy Murray’s win over Marcos Baghdatis minutes past the Wimbledon Village curfew inside a roofed Centre Court, netted ESPN a 0.9 national rating, the best for a middle Saturday since a  combined 1.0 for ESPN2 and NBC in 2007. 

On a coverage rating basis, ESPN’s 1.0 average for the extended presentation — Murray advanced to the round of 16 at 11:02 p.m. local time — tied the sports giant’s previous Wimbledon Nielsen marks: ESPN2 hit that level on July 4, 2007 with women’s quarterfinals coverage, while ESPN delivered that mark on July 4, 2003 with a men’s semifinal.

With first-to-last-ball coverage during the business end of the world’s most prestigious tennis tourney in store, ESPN and ESPN2 figure to generate higher ratings during the second week at Wimbledon, highlighted by the ladies’ and gentlemen’s semifinals and finals presentations.

On the digital front, users during the first week of Wimbledon consumed 46.6 million live minutes across all platforms — computer, smartphone, tablet and Xbox — up 67% from the same point of the 2011 tournament.