ESPN’s Cup Runneth Over Too Late

The ESPN audience for the first three races of the America’s Cup final averaged a 3.0 Nielsen rating, which translates to about 1.2 million homes and 3 million viewers per night, an ESPN spokesman said Tuesday.

One reason the ratings are not higher is that the telecasts run from 11 p.m. to about 3:30 a.m. in the East.

ESPN, which reaches 40 million homes, ordinarily averages a .5 rating (201,000 households) during that time period.

The average rating for the challenger and defender finals was 1.2. The deciding challenger race between Stars & Stripes and New Zealand drew a 1.6 rating.