It shouldn't turn out to be a huge shock, as Columbus is consistently rated as one of the best media markets for anything even remotely related to college football (and sports in general), but the capital city ended up being the number one market for the 2020 NFL Draft.
2020 #NFLDraft top 10 markets @ABCNetwork | @espn | @nflnetwork
— ESPN PR (@ESPNPR) April 26, 2020
More: https://t.co/PPw11GYeXk pic.twitter.com/IZsjDPr0rv
It helps that Ohio State had 10 players go, and said players were spread pretty evenly throughout the draft, and it also helps that Columbus is a confluence of Browns, Steelers, and Bengals fans. As you can see above, all three major Ohio metropolitan areas went absolutely nuts for the draft, and it should also be pointed out that Columbus was the only media market without an NFL team nearby.
The unique presentation of the 2020 NFL Draft established new all-time highs for media consumption in every category. With over 600 camera feeds from homes across the United States, all telecasts of the 2020 NFL Draft reached more than 55 million total viewers across Nielsen-measured channels over the three-day event, up +16% vs. 2019.
An average audience of over 8.4 million viewers watched all three days of the 2020 NFL Draft across ABC, ESPN, NFL Network, ESPN Deportes, and digital channels easily breaking the previous high of 6.2 million viewers in 2019 (+35%).
This is actually a super wild story with much larger implications for how we consume sports media, but for now it suffices to say that Ohioans really, really enjoy watching their native and adopted sons strike it rich in the NFL.
