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Ratings revealed for 2026 NFL Draft, down 12 percent from last year

Brian Jones Profile Picby: Brian Jones04/29/26brianjones_93

The TV ratings for the 2026 NFL Draft have been revealed. According to David Rumsey of Front Office Sports, this year’s draft averaged 6.6 million viewers across all networks for the three-day event. That’s down 12 percent from the 2025 NFL Draft, which averaged 7.5 million viewers.

Rumsey noted that despite the 2026 NFL Draft being down from last year, it is the third most-watched draft on record, dating back to when the three-day format began in 2010. The highest-viewed draft in the current format is 2020, which had 8.4 million viewers.

The draft aired on ABC, ESPN, and the NFL Network, and On3’s Nick Schultz obtained Neilsen Big Data and Panel data for the the first three rounds. Round 1 had 12.902 million viewers, Round 2 had 6.316 million, and Round 3 had 3.677.

Rumsey also pointed out that the attendance for the NFL Draft, which was held in Pittsburgh, made history. The NFL announced that the three-day event drew 805,000, surpassing the league record of 775,000 in Detroit in 2024.

More on the 2026 NFL Draft in Pittsburgh

Before the draft began, NFL commissioner Roger Goodell discussed why having the event in Pittsburgh is special for him. “I’m going to get emotional, but I was thinking about flying in, you know, who would have ever dreamed that I’d be coming back to Western Pennsylvania for an NFL draft in front of hundreds of thousands of people and being able to celebrate a place that was really important to me in my life. So, yeah, it’s definitely special,” Goodell said, per WTAE.

Goodell also revealed what makes a draft successful. “At the core of this, this is a huge football event, right? This is, you know, we have to make sure this works for all 32 teams and that we do our job to make sure that they can make the picks they want to make,” he said. “So that’s always at the core. Second is the fan. If the fan has a good experience here, that’s top of our list.”

The 2026 NFL Draft was held at Pittsburgh’s North Shore, including Point State Park and Acrisure Stadium, the home of the Pittsburgh Steelers. Next year’s draft will be held in Washington, D.C. on the National Mall.