ESPN/ABC Sports Having Best First Half Since 2016

At the halfway mark of Nielsen’s 2025 calendar year, ESPN is delivering significant viewership successes. In addition to leading amongst all Nielsen-rated networks, ESPN is experiencing its highest levels of viewership since at least 2016 in multiple areas, including ‘ESPN + Sports on ABC’.

Measuring against its own audience, Nielsen reported ESPN has increased its viewership throughout the first half of 2025 from the same point in 2024. ESPN on its own is up 4% year-over-year across the entire day (24 hours of programming) and up 9% when isolating the primetime hours (8-11 p.m. ET). When adding ‘Sports on ABC’ with ESPN’s all-day programming, ESPN has increased its viewership by 1% compared to the first half of 2024.

All three categories are among the highest audiences for ESPN in recent years, including more than a decade in Prime Time:

• ESPN & Sports on ABC: Most-watched first half of the year since 2016, with more than 254 billion minutes consumed.
• ESPN: Second best average-minute-audience since 2017 at the year’s halfway point, with the primary network averaging 712,000 viewers for every minute across 183 days.
• ESPN Prime Time: Best since 2014, with the primary network averaging 1.9 million viewers during the 183 nights.

ESPN’s Nielsen-Rated Platforms Approaching 300 Billion Minutes Watched: Adding in all of ESPN’s Nielsen-rated platforms, fans have combined for nearly 300 billion minutes watched, the most of all Nielsen’s nationally measured sports viewership channels in 2025. ESPN alone accounts for 187 billion minutes, the most sports content consumed by any single network across all Nielsen nationally measured platforms.

ESPN’s Digital and Social Remains No. 1 Per Comscore Data: ESPN’s strong television viewership is in addition to its continued digital successes. According to the latest available Comscore data, ESPN Digital & Social was again No. 1 in the U.S. Sports Category with 175.1 million unique users, up 5% year-over-year and reaching 63% of the U.S. adult population across digital, YouTube and social media platforms, according to recently released Comscore data. Additional successes in the same month:The ESPN App remained No. 1 in May, reaching 27.0 million unique users, up 16% year-over-year, more than the next nine non-ESPN apps combined and eight times its nearest competitor in the Mobile Sports App category.

• ESPN.com was No. 1 across the web in May with 55.8 million unique visitors and 1.7 billion minutes, up 27% year-over-year.
• For the 47th month in a row ESPN Social was No. 1 among sports properties, reaching 768 million engagements in May, nearly 25 million per day.

Please Note: All metrics are based on Nielsen Data. Nielsen’s Q1 + Q2 date range is December 30, 2024 to June 29, 2025. All comparisons are inclusive of Nielsen’s defined Q1 and Q2 in past years. ESPN’s Nielsen-rated platforms include: ESPN, ESPN2, ABC, ESPNU, and ESPN Deportes.