Trump Claims GOP Convention ‘Beat’ the NFL in Viewership — Nielsen Numbers Say the Opposite

On Wednesday evening, American television offered two major events at the same hour: President Donald Trump’s speech at the first Republican midterm convention, held in Dallas, and the new NFL season opener between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots. According to Nielsen measurements, the winner is clear — and it is not who Trump claimed.

NBC announced that the American football game was watched by an average of 25.1 million viewers, counting television broadcast and streaming platforms. Trump’s speech, by contrast, gathered only about 3 million viewers in total: 2.5 million on Fox News, about 400,000 on Newsmax and about 125,000 on NewsNation.

The president did not wait for the official numbers. The next morning he wrote on Truth Social that the “overall numbers beat the NFL” — a triumphant claim made before any audience measurement was published. He also denied journalists’ observations of empty seats in the Dallas arena. But as soon as the numbers came to light, his posts about viewership stopped abruptly.

The second evening did not go any better for the Republicans. Trump’s shortened speech was up against the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, 49ers vs. Rams, broadcast live on Netflix: 18.5 million viewers in the U.S. for football, versus 2.6 million on Fox News, 350,000 on Newsmax and about 100,000 on NewsNation.

The midterm convention is a new format, deliberately organized by the GOP head-to-head with the NFL season opener — a clash that now looks like a miscalculation. Analysts see the poor audience performance as a possible signal of a lack of enthusiasm in the Republican base, only months before the midterm elections.

Source: CNN