College and pro football’s regular seasons are grinding on while the other football — the top-flight American women’s and men’s versions of the so-called “beautiful game” — is wrapping up its seasons.

And one of them is ending the year with an additional reason to pop champagne corks.

The Portland Thorns’ 2-0 win over the Kansas City Current in the National Women’s Soccer League championship game at Audi Field in Washington, D.C., averaged a league-record 915,000 viewers for CBS on Saturday evening.

The match aired against college football and the World Series, too.

“I think 915,000 is impressive (considering) the competition,” said Jon Lewis, who has crunched live sports audience data since 2006 at Sports Media Watch. He added that if the game had been scheduled without football competition or, say, drafting off of Sunday afternoon’s early CBS NFL slate, it probably would have topped 1 million viewers.

It was the first time since the NWSL’s 2013 inception that its championship match was broadcast on a major network in prime time, and the result of that additional spotlight was immediately enormous. And with long-term benefits likely, too.

Last year’s title game, a 2-1 win by the Washington Spirit over the Chicago Red Stars, averaged 525,000 for a noon kickoff on CBS. That game had originally been scheduled for an earlier start in Portland, but criticism led to the match being relocated to Kentucky with a noon Eastern time start.

There was no traditional-format NWSL title game in 2020 because of the pandemic, and it was replaced by a month-long tournament won by the Houston Dash in July of that year in front of a TV audience of 653,000 on CBS. The league at the time was among the first sports organizations to return to play amid pandemic cancellations and postponements, and that audience was a record until this past weekend.

In 2019, the NWSL title game averaged 166,000 viewers on ESPN who watched the North Carolina Courage beat the Chicago Red Stars, 4-0.

Saturday night’s audience was better than Major League Soccer’s championship game English-language viewership in 2019 (823,000, ABC) and 2017 (803,000, ESPN).

The record audience could bolster the NWSL’s case for increased media rights. CBS reportedly is paying the NWSL $4.5 million over three years for its broadcast rights in a deal inked in 2020.

However, the league’s regular-season audience metrics are more important to a network, Lewis noted, because that’s ultimately what’s being paid for — live game inventory throughout a season more than a one-off championship match.

The network’s handful of NWSL regular-season and Challenge Cup matches this season ranged in viewership from 349,000 to 461,000 for CBS, per Reuters, which noted that most of the league’s matches stream on Paramount+ and Amazon-owned Twitch and those audience metrics aren’t disclosed.

The top MLS regular-season match audience was 593,000 on July 30 for Minnesota United-Portland Timbers on ABC and ESPN Deportes.

So while the league’s future media revenue will be dictated primarily by regular-season metrics, along with playoff viewership, the championship TV numbers are nothing to scoff at.

“It’s not a revolutionary number, but it’s a number you can build on,” Lewis said.

The 12-team league, whose clubs feature players from the wildly successful U.S. Women’s National Team, is still working on a new media rights deal to begin at the end of 2023. It could land a significant increase in dollars because of the growing audiences for women’s live sports, increased corporate sponsorship, and advertiser appetite to reach the league’s audience demographics.

GO DEEPER

Why extended partnership between NWSL and major sponsor is so important

CBS now has an exclusive negotiating window with the NWSL, per Sports Business Journal.

The NWSL plans to add two more clubs by 2024, which could further boost the league’s media rights value as its reach expands geographically.

Saturday’s title game was streamed live internationally on Amazon-owned Twitch. The match originally was scheduled for noon, but Detroit-based bank Ally, the game’s corporate title sponsor and a major league advertising partner, struck a deal to get the game into prime time. How much Ally paid CBS hasn’t been disclosed.

The 2022 championship caps off a season in which abusive behavior and poor administration across women’s soccer, including the NWSL and Portland Thorns as outlined in an investigation led by former acting U.S. Attorney General Sally Yates. Her report and the situation have garnered widespread attention and spurred several coach and executive firings and resignations amid calls for justice and reform.

The NWSL also will be going for new media rights money in the wake of MLS having transitioned from a traditional linear TV model to putting the bulk of its inventory behind a streaming paywall under a 10-year, $2.5 billion deal struck earlier this year with Apple TV+.

GO DEEPER

MLS faces race against time to build broadcast operation ahead of Apple TV deal

And speaking of the men’s side, the MLS Cup between LAFC and Philadelphia Union at Banc of California Stadium is scheduled for 4 p.m. Saturday on Fox.

The match will directly compete for viewers with college football’s No. 1 Georgia versus No. 2 Tennessee game that kicks off at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.

Last year, New York City FC’s 4-2 penalty shootout victory over the Portland Timbers averaged 1.14 million viewers on ABC. The match had the best MLS Cup audience since 2009 despite being up against the annual Army-Navy game on CBS — a game that’s a college football tradition but isn’t the TV draw that Georgia-Tennessee will be on Saturday.

The MLS Cup audience record remains 3.1 million for its inaugural season in 1996. It’s generally been around 1 million-plus and last topped a 2 million-viewer average in 2016.

WORLD SERIES: The Houston-Philadelphia series began Friday night with better audience numbers than the past two MLB championship openers but still the third-lowest viewership of all time.

The Phillies’ 6-5 comeback win over the Astros in 10 innings last Friday averaged 11.47 million viewers on Fox. While that’s better than Game 1 in 2021 (10.81 million) and 2020 (9.19 million), it’s still a far cry from baseball’s heyday decades ago that saw tens of millions more viewers.

The last World Series Game 1 to top 20 million viewers was Boston’s first game of a sweep of the Cardinals in 2004 that averaged 23.16 million. The last World Series to average 20 million-plus viewers was the Cubs’ seven-game win over Cleveland in 2016 (22.84 million average). Prior to that, the last at 20 million or more was that Boston sweep in 2004 (25.39 million).

Those historic numbers were certainly higher in reality because Nielsen wasn’t counting viewership measured at bars and restaurants at the time (which didn’t formally occur until 2020).

Houston evened this year’s series with a 5-2 win on Saturday night that averaged 10.99 million viewers. Like Game 1, that’s better than 2020-21 but otherwise a historic low.

GO DEEPER

What does Fox’s MLB crew want from the Astros-Phillies World Series? Tension

While MLB does have a shrinking, graying audience problem (and faces the looming regional sports network model implosion), in the short-term, the dwindling numbers don’t come with a serious cost. The metrics still win all the key demos and the eyeball total still blows away everything except the NFL — and everyone involved still gets handsomely paid.

These averages appear to be the new normal for the World Series.

Game 3, which would have been up against the Bengals-Browns “Monday Night Football” game on ESPN, was postponed a day because of the threat of bad weather in Philadelphia — which means a potential Game 7 would now be a Sunday prime-time game that airs directly against NBC’s powerhouse “Sunday Night Football” broadcast (Titans at Chiefs).

But that’s not the only interesting thing about the weather shakeup. Thursday was originally a travel day as the series shifts back to Houston, but now Game 5 will be played that night and will air against Amazon Prime Video’s “Thursday Night Football” stream of the Philadelphia Eagles at the Houston Texans.

Just imagine if one of the two cities is celebrating a World Series win and an NFL win over the same opponent’s city on the same night.

Below is the revised World Series broadcast schedule. All games are on Fox and Fox Deportes with first pitch at 8:03 p.m.

• Game 3 (Nov. 1) — Houston at Philadelphia
• Game 4 (Nov. 2) — Houston at Philadelphia
• Game 5 (Nov. 3) — Houston at Philadelphia
• Game 6 (Nov. 5) — Philadelphia at Houston*
• Game 7 (Nov. 6) — Philadelphia at Houston*

(* if necessary)

The World Series has been aired exclusively by Fox since 2000 and will continue to be through 2028 under a $5.1 billion media rights deal inked with MLB in 2018.

Atlanta’s six-game World Series win over Houston last season averaged 11.7 million viewers overall, which was better than 2020’s pandemic-ravaged average of 9.78 million (Dodgers over Rays, six games, all at a neutral site) that was a historic low, but down from 2019’s 13.9 million average (Nationals over Astros, seven games). The series record is 1978’s 44.27 million average (Yankees over Dodgers, six games, NBC).

A seven-game, competitive series typically draws the best viewership. To bring viewers as close to the games as possible, Fox said it has deployed 64 cameras, including 16 super slow-motion, and 89 microphones (with eight buried in the field dirt) for live coverage of each game.

GO DEEPER

2022 World Series business tale of the tape: How the Astros and Phillies compare

COLLEGE FOOTBALL: No surprise here. Leading the weekend for college football viewership was No. 2 Ohio State’s fourth-quarter scoring explosion to put away No. 13 Penn State 44-31 at Happy Valley, which averaged 8.27 million viewers for the noon kickoff on Fox.

That’s the fourth-best college football audience so far this season, per Sports Media Watch’s database, trailing only:

• Alabama-Tennessee — 11.56 million, Week 7 (CBS)
• Alabama-Texas — 10.6 million, Week 2 (Fox)
• Notre Dame-Ohio State — 10.53 million, Week 1 (ABC)

The networks sure do love them some Crimson Tide and Buckeyes. The most-watched game every week this season has featured at least one SEC or Big Ten team.

No. 1 Georgia’s 42-20 rivalry series win over unranked Florida in the “World’s Largest Outdoor Cocktail Party” was second in Saturday viewership with 5.62 million watching on CBS for the mid-afternoon kickoff at Jacksonville’s TIAA Bank Field. That game was marred by something unfortunate: Someone displayed an anti-Jewish hate message digitally on the stadium exterior (and elsewhere in Jacksonville) after the game.

No. 4 Michigan’s 29-7 win over in-state rival Michigan State, which drew more attention for a handful of Spartans pummeling two Michigan players in the locker room tunnel after the game, averaged 5.5 million for ABC on Saturday night.

Tennessee’s rout of Kentucky in prime time on ESPN averaged 4 million viewers, the only other game to broach that viewership threshold this week.

This week’s slate of games is obviously led by No. 1 Georgia hosting Tennessee, now tied at No. 2 in the AP rankings with Ohio State, at 3:30 p.m. on CBS.

Saturday’s games kick off at 11:30 a.m. with Army-Air Force on CBS from Globe Life Field, the Texas Rangers’ baseball stadium. The noon games on the major networks include No. 2 Ohio State at Northwestern on ABC; Florida at Texas A&M on ESPN; and No. 7 TCU hosting Texas Tech on Fox.

In prime time, No. 15 LSU hosts No. 6 Alabama at 7 p.m. on ESPN while Florida State-Miami is on ABC at 7:30 p.m. and Notre Dame hosts No. 5 Clemson, also at 7:30 p.m.

Saturday late night features No. 9 USC against Cal at 10:30 p.m. on ESPN from L.A. Memorial Coliseum.

GO DEEPER

CFB TV Rewind: Utah hangs Fox out to dry, Dan Mullen’s debut, Sickos shine

NFL: The 49ers’ win over the Rams led the NFL’s viewership last week with a whopping 24.9 million viewers to lead Fox’s double-header broadcast windows on Sunday.

The other late afternoon Fox games were Giants-Seahawks and Commanders-Colts.

Fox, which brands its national window as “America’s Game of the Week,” is averaging 23.24 million viewers this season, which is up 10 percent over 2021 at the same point.

The network’s early window, which averaged 11.93 million viewers, was predominantly the Bears-Cowboys telecast with the rest of the country getting Panthers-Falcons and Cardinals-Vikings.

CBS’ single-header window (meaning a 1 p.m. or 4 p.m. game rather than back-to-back) averaged 16.12 million viewers, which the network said was up 12 percent over the same comparable window. The early CBS window was led by Steelers-Eagles along with Patriots-Jets, Raiders-Saints, and Dolphins-Lions. The late game was Titans-Texans in a wistful game for old Oilers fans.

NBC said its “Sunday Night Football” broadcast of the Bills beating the Packers averaged 21 million viewers, making it the best Week 8 SNF telecast since 2015 (a standard-issue type of network bragging point that is true but fails to account for week-to-week scheduling and competitiveness that drives eyeballs with such comparisons … but alas).

Amazon’s “Thursday Night Football” stream of the Ravens-Buccaneers averaged 10 million viewers, a rebound after weekly declines since the streaming TNF opener in Week 2.

For overall context, all NFL regular-season games in 2021 averaged 17.1 million viewers, and the league record for regular-season viewership is 18.1 million set in 2015.

FURTHER READING: Here are some useful and interesting sports media stories and tidbits from recent days …

1. Big 12 cashes in with new media rights deals with ESPN and Fox;
2. What does Fox’s MLB crew want from the Astros-Phillies World Series? Tension;
3. The NBA may sell a package of paywalled streaming games in its next round of media rights deals that will begin after the 2024-25 season, per Front Office Sports;
4. Herm Edwards is back at ESPN;
5. College Football Playoff expansion means a battle with the NFL for TV time;
6. HBO’s in-season version of “Hard Knocks” debuts at 10 p.m. Nov. 9, featuring the Arizona Cardinals.

All viewership data is from Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, and other metrics via the TV networks, Nielsen, Sports Media Watch, ShowBuzz Daily, 506Sports.com, and the leagues. All times Eastern unless otherwise noted.

(Photo: Ira L. Black / Getty Images)