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Nice Catch: Activating Spanish-Dominant Hispanic Viewers Has Added Viewership Yards To Football

2 minute read | January 2016

As pro football continues to score viewership touchdownsโ€”routinely topping an average of 18 million viewers for the regular season aloneโ€”and perhaps usurp other sports as Americaโ€™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 impactโ€”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 quarterโ€”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 dominanceโ€”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 thatโ€”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.