NFL Draft=American TV Juggernaut; Hampton Leads UNC’s 2025 Prospects
By David Glenn
Last April, when record-setting North Carolina quarterback Drake Maye became the #3 overall selection in the National Football League draft, the estimated American television audience consisted of more than 12 million people.
That enormous TV number represented far more viewers than had watched Maye perform in any of the 30 games he played for the Tar Heels during the 2021, 2022 and 2023 seasons.
This year, UNC running back Omarion Hampton, a two-time All-American, will experience a similarly bright spotlight when he hears his name called, possibly as another first-round pick.
That’s what happens when you’re a prominent player joining the most lucrative sports organization in the world.
Decades ago, the NFL passed Major League Baseball as the highest-revenue professional sports league, and the NFL draft — which begins Thursday (8 pm, ABC/ESPN/ESPN Deportes/NFL Network/NFL+) and runs through Saturday — offers another major reminder why.
Millions of Americans care about football, and they care a lot, even when games aren’t being played.
North Carolina running back Omarion Hampton (28) runs to the end zone for his team’s second touchdown against Florida State during the first half of an NCAA college football game, Saturday, Nov. 2, 2024, in Tallahassee, Fla. (AP Photo/Colin Hackley)
As a television product, the NFL draft — and its highly publicized first round on Thursday, in particular — now often draws a larger TV/streaming audience than all but a handful of the most prominent GAMES offered by America’s other favorite sports.
For example, in 2023, the NFL draft’s first round drew an average audience of approximately 11.3 million viewers across the above-mentioned broadcast channels and their corresponding digital platforms. The 2023 National Basketball Association draft’s first round, another much-publicized event televised on ABC and ESPN, averaged about 4.9 million viewers.
For additional perspective on the magnitude of that 2023 first-round NFL audience, consider that the 2023 NBA championship series between the Denver Nuggets and the Miami Heat averaged approximately 11.6 million viewers per game, the 2023 World Series between the Texas Rangers and the Arizona Diamondbacks averaged approximately 9.1 million viewers per game, and the 2023 Stanley Cup finals between the Vegas Golden Knights and the Florida Panthers averaged approximately 2.6 million viewers per game.
Yes, you read that correctly. An offseason NFL event, in which not a pass was thrown nor a tackle made, once again came very close to attracting a larger first-night audience than ALL of those most important ACTUAL GAMES in the CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES of America’s other most popular professional team sports.
In recent years, coverage of the NFL draft’s first round consistently has attracted an average TV/streaming audience of more than 10 million American viewers. Even Maye’s three postseason appearances for the Tar Heels — in the 2022 Holiday Bowl (4 million), the 2023 Duke’s Mayo Bowl (3.8 million) and the 2022 ACC championship game (3.5 million) — fell well short of TV/streaming audiences even half that size.
Besides NFL games, the only regularly scheduled annual sporting events that routinely have attracted larger audiences than those of the NFL draft’s first round in recent years are the College Football Playoff (the three-game average can surpass 20 million per game), the Final Four of the NCAA Tournament (the three-game average has been in the 14-19 million per game range lately) and the one-hour-long “race segment” of Kentucky Derby horse racing coverage (14-17 million with occasional anomalies). Again, all of those involve actual games/races.
Thanks to multimedia contracts worth approximately $10 billion per year all the way through the 2033 season, the NFL is expected to become — within the next few years — the first sports organization ever whose annual revenues routinely surpass $20 billion per year.
The Super Bowl often draws an American TV/streaming audience of more than 100 million viewers, and in recent years, NFL games — including many of the regular-season variety — have produced a large majority of the most watched TV events in America, and that includes cable or network broadcasts, sports or non-sports programming.
The powerful draw of the NFL can be similarly impressive during its offseason, and there’s no sign of that interest slowing down.
Each of the last five NFL drafts ranked among the eight most-watched in history, led by the all-time record 8.4 million average viewers (over the full three-day event and about 15 hours of coverage) during the 2020 COVID pandemic, 6.2 million in 2019 and 6.1 million in 2021.
Top-Rated 2025 ACC Prospects
Miami QB Cam Ward (6-1, 219) Boston College DE Donovan Ezeiruaku (6-2, 248)
North Carolina RB Omarion Hampton (5-11, 221)
Florida State CB Azareye’h Thomas (6-1, 196)
Louisville QB Tyler Shough (6-5, 219)
Cal CB Nohl Williams (6-0, 199)
Stanford WR Elic Ayomanor (6-1, 206)
Miami TE Elijah Arroyo (6-5, 254)
Boston College OT Ozzy Trapilo (6-8, 316)
Virginia S Jonas Sanker (6-0, 206)
Florida State DT Joshua Farmer (6-3, 305)
Louisville DE Ashton Gillotte (6-2, 264)
NC State OT Anthony Belton (6-6, 336)
Clemson LB Barrett Carter (6-0, 232)
Louisville CB Quincy Riley (5-10, 194)
Other Prominent UNC Prospects
DE Kaimon Rucker (6-1, 255) OG Willie Lampkin (5-11, 279)
CB Alijah Huzzie (5-10, 193)
DT Jahvaree Ritzie (6-4, 288)
TE Bryson Nesbit (6-5, 238)
LB Power Echols (5-11, 234)
Other Prominent NC Prospects
East Carolina CB Shavon Revel Jr. (6-1, 202)
David Glenn (DavidGlennShow.com, @DavidGlennShow) is an award-winning author, broadcaster, editor, entrepreneur, publisher, speaker, writer and university lecturer (now at UNC Wilmington) who has covered sports in North Carolina since 1987.
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