Ratings Roundup: Nadal-Federer Draws Largest French Open Audience Since 1999

NBC Sports’ coverage of men’s final at the French Open tennis tournament on Sunday recorded a 2.6/7 overnight rating/share, the best overnight rating for the event in 12 years and up 63% from last year’s men’s final (Nadal-Soderling, 1.6/5). Rafael Nadal’s four-set win over Roger Federer earned the best overnight for the French Open men’s final since 1999, when Andre Agassi became the last American man to win this event, beating Andrei Medvedev in a classic five-set match (4.0/12). It also marked the best overnight rating for a Nadal-Federer final at Roland Garros (1.8/5 in 2008, 2.2/6 in 2007, and 2.1/6 in 2006)…

…NBC’s additional French Open coverage also produced solid overnights as Li Na’s win over Francesca Schiavone in straight sets on Saturday earned a 1.7/5 rating/share for best overnight since 2008. On Friday, NBC aired the Federer-Djokovic semifinal match live and the conclusion of the Nadal-Murray semifinal match. That drew an overnight rating of 1.3/3, up 30% over last year’s semifinals (1.0/3)…

…Based on fast nationals, the 2011 NBA Finals on ABC — with the Miami Heat leading the Dallas Mavericks 2-1 in the best-of-seven series — are averaging 15.3 million viewers and a 9.1 rating. This year’s Finals have been the most-viewed since 2004 (Los Angeles Lakers-Detroit Pistons, 15.0 million viewers, 10.4 rating). All three games from the 2011 Finals on ABC have delivered the highest-rated programs of the night. Compared with 2010, this year’s Finals are up slightly in viewership (15.25 million) and are even in rating (9.1). Compared with 2006, when the same two teams met in the Finals, the series is up 27% among viewers and 15% in rating…

…After a promising Game 1 (4.56 million viewers and a 2.7 household rating), the NBC’s Stanley Cup Finals coverage took a dramatic nosedive in Game 2, averaging 3.37 million viewers on Saturday night, down 43% from Game 2 last year. The preliminary 1.2 rating for adults 18-49 was down 50% from last year’s Game 2, which notched a 2.4…

…Fox telecasts of the first 13 NASCAR Sprint Cup series races hit a three-year high, averaging 8.6 million viewers per race, up 9% over last year (7.9 million viewers). That is the largest one-year audience increase in the 11-year history of NASCAR on Fox. Fox’s NASCAR coverage this year averaged a 5.0/11 household rating/share, concluding on Sunday with a 3.9/10 (6.3 million viewers)…

…NBCSports.com’s live streaming of Friday’s French Open semifinal match from Roland Garros logged nearly 120,000 video starts, an average viewing time of 48 minutes per stream, and more than 5.7 million total minutes consumed. NBCSports.com’s homepage traffic for the day was five times higher than average.