As pro football continues to score viewership touchdowns—routinely topping an average of 18 million viewers for the regular season alone—and perhaps usurp other sports as America’s new favorite pastime among some fans, its appeal seems to be far-reaching and trending toward ubiquitous.
The hard-hitting action and on-field heroics have also had a strong multicultural impact—especially among Hispanic viewers, who, according to Nielsen third-quarter Total Audience Report, spend an average of nearly 110 hours per month tuning in to live and time-shifted TV and represent more than $1 trillion in spending power. The report also found that live/time-shifted television reached nearly 49 million Hispanic viewers monthly during that same quarter—about 17% of the total U.S.
On the heels of Carolina Panthers Coach Ron Rivera becoming only the second Latino head coach in NFL history to make it to a Super Bowl, a recent Nielsen analysis looked at the Hispanic NFL viewing audience.
The deep dive found trends in viewing within that demographic itself based on language dominance—Hispanics that use and rely on either English or Spanish as a main way to communicate.
In fact, while 2015 regular season NFL games averaged about 1.7 million Hispanic viewers (P2+) tuning in, representing a 17% increase since the 2012 season, Spanish-dominant viewers accounted for a quarter (25%) of viewers in this demographic.
And there has been steady upward traction among NFL viewing of Spanish-dominant viewers. Average viewership for regular season NFL games among this demo has increased 28% over the last half-decade alone.
In terms of the big game, the analysis looked at the aggregated average viewership of the last five Super Bowls (from 2011-2015) and found that while an average of 11.2 million viewers are Hispanic, or about 10% of the total average viewership, Spanish dominant viewers represent about a third of that—nearly 3.4 million viewers!
Knowing the nuanced differences within certain demographics can help give a needed line of sight to many industry operators on how to reach their best consumer.
