The high-water mark for the Manningcast came three weeks ago, when the Chiefs hosted the Giants. On average, 1.96 million watched that game via the alternate feed.
Last night, when the Giants visited the Buccaneers, the audience fell to 1.575 million. It was a slight increase from last week's average crowd of 1.554 million for Rams-49ers.
Factoring in the full audience of 12 million on all platforms, the Manningcast accounted for 13.1 percent of the total viewership for the Week 11 game. Given that the Bucs blew out the Giants, it's possible that more people flipped from the main feed to the secondary one.
Although the Peyton and Eli show has been well received by the media, it's still not taking much of a chunk out of the primary broadcast. The simulcast is very entertaining; however, the game becomes an afterthought at times, especially when they have guests join the conversation.
Here's the real question. Does the cost justify the benefit? To know that, we'd need to know how much they're paying the Mannings.
Our guess? Plenty. Given that most if not all of the 1.575 million who watched ESPN2 last night would have been watching the game on ESPN, it's fair to wonder whether the bean counters think that the beans going out outweigh the beans coming in.
Manningcast audience rebounds, slightly originally appeared on Pro Football Talk