{"id":16632,"date":"2025-05-02T01:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T01:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/16632\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T01:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T01:07:10","slug":"nfl-draft-sets-viewership-records-with-shedeur-sanders-slide-driving-historic-day-3-interest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/16632\/","title":{"rendered":"NFL Draft sets viewership records with Shedeur Sanders’ slide driving historic Day 3 interest"},"content":{"rendered":"

THE 2025 NFL Draft has earned viewership records, and Shedeur Sanders’ slide played a massive role in the interest.<\/p>\n

Sanders<\/a>, once thought of as a first-round pick, fell to the Cleveland Browns<\/a> with the No. 144 selection last weekend in Green Bay, Wisconsin.<\/p>\n

\"Screen<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

The 2025 NFL Draft saw record viewership on Day 3, thanks to the interest in where eventual fifth-round pick Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders would landCredit: Getty\"BOULDER,<\/a><\/p>\n

2<\/p>\n

The Colorado Buffaloes product and son of Deion Sanders threw for 37 touchdowns in 2024Credit: Getty<\/p>\n

Sanders wasn’t picked on Days 1 and 2 as the possibilities of where he’d end up in the NFL<\/a> extended to Day 3.<\/p>\n

As a result, the NFL would set a Day 3 viewership record.<\/p>\n

The league revealed in a press release that Day 3’s draft coverage, which was Rounds 4-7, averaged a record 4.3 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, NFL Network, and ESPN Deportes on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The viewership increased 43 percent compared to last year’s late-round coverage.<\/p>\n

The 2025 NFL Draft<\/a> averaged 7.5 million viewers across ESPN’s platforms and NFL Network.<\/p>\n

That figure is up 27 percent versus last year’s coverage.<\/p>\n

This year’s NFL Draft was the second-most-watched ever, behind the 2020 edition, which was one of the first sports-related events that took place in the early days of the COVID pandemic.<\/p>\n

The fall of Sanders’ helped the viewership remain strong on Day 3.<\/p>\n

The first-round viewership was up 11 percent, but Days 2 and 3 saw increases of 48 and 43 percent, respectively.<\/p>\n

Sanders didn’t hear his name on Day 2 as Rounds 2 and 3 went by.<\/p>\n

Tony Romo\u2019s Advice to Shedeur Sanders After Draft Slide<\/p>\n

Finally, on Day 3, the son of Deion Sanders<\/a> got the call from the Browns, who traded up with the Seattle Seahawks to select him<\/a>.<\/p>\n

It was revealed by Sports Media Watch’s Jon Lewis that NFL Network’s viewership increased by 52 percent year-over-year.<\/p>\n

As for ESPN, the network got a 22 percent bump.<\/p>\n

NFL Network had its most-watched draft since 2017.<\/p>\n

NFL important dates 2025 season<\/p>\n

March 12 – Free Agency begins<\/p>\n

April 24-26 – NFL Draft in Green Bay, Wisconsin<\/p>\n

September 4 – 2025 season opener (TBC vs Eagles)<\/p>\n

November 27 – Thanksgiving Day triple header<\/p>\n

January 4, 2026 – End of regular-season<\/p>\n

February 8, 2026 – Super Bowl LX at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California<\/p>\n

ESPN, meanwhile, received its most-watched draft since 2020.<\/p>\n

This year’s NFL Draft also got incredible attendance numbers.<\/p>\n

During the three days, more than 600,000 fans attended the festivities in Green Bay.<\/p>\n

The mark matched Nashville’s record in 2019 for the second-highest attendance in Draft history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"THE 2025 NFL Draft has earned viewership records, and Shedeur Sanders’ slide played a massive role in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":16633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,6,15,578,17],"class_list":{"0":"post-16632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-nfl","10":"tag-nfl-draft","11":"tag-section-sportamerican-football","12":"tag-shedeur-sanders"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114435565087303137","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}