Trump said the GOP’s midterm convention outperformed the NFL. Ratings show otherwise

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

There were two big events on television last Wednesday night: President Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican Party’s midterm convention, and the NFL’s 2025-26 season kickoff game between the Seattle Seahawks and the New England Patriots.

The NFL game drew more than 25 million viewers. Trump’s speech reached about 3 million viewers.

By the time the Nielsen ratings came in, however, the president had already declared victory for the convention and himself.

“The overall numbers beat the NFL,” Trump wrote on Truth Social the next morning, long before any such numbers were available.

Trump’s post was written in such a way that it is hard to fact-check, even now. But all the available data indicates that the Seahawks–Patriots Super Bowl rematch was the main attraction on Wednesday night.

And that’s notable because the GOP decided to schedule the first-of-its-kind convention on the same nights as the first two NFL games of the season.

Heading into the convention, there were questions — and concerns and jokes — about whether Trump and the GOP would be overshadowed by the football games.

“Programming against the NFL? A mistake for the TV master,” Fox co-host Jessica Tarlov remarked as the convention got underway on Wednesday.

Trump spoke for nearly two hours that night, and his speech was shown live on Fox News, as well as two other Nielsen-rated channels, Newsmax and NewsNation.

Fox News averaged 2.5 million viewers during the speech, an underwhelming total given that the cable network attracts almost as many viewers on a normal night.

Newsmax had almost 400,000 viewers during the speech, while NewsNation had about 125,000, according to Nielsen data.

Trump appeared preoccupied with the possibility that people would think the event was a dud.

He wrote the next morning on Truth Social that it was “a major, sold out hit, far bigger, better, and more important than anyone thought possible. It was really something, streaming all over the place, and really big numbers, despite going up against the NFL. The overall numbers beat the NFL.”

He went on to tout the size of the crowds in the Dallas arena, trying to deny reporters’ observations of empty seats.

Trump invoked the fact that his speech was “streaming all over the place,” as if to suggest that the cumulative audience would somehow surpass the NFL game.

But that’s illogical, given the enormous ratings for the Seahawks–Patriots game, which was shown on the NBC broadcast network and the Peacock streaming service.

NBC announced on Monday that the game averaged 25.1 million viewers across both broadcast and streaming. By contrast, the most-viewed YouTube videos of Trump’s night one speech have only hundreds of thousands of views.

Trump’s much shorter night two speech was up against the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia, where the San Francisco 49ers played the Los Angeles Rams, live on Netflix.

That game averaged 18.5 million viewers in the US, according to Nielsen.

Trump’s night two speech averaged 2.6 million viewers via Fox News; 350,000 via Newsmax; and about 100,000 via NewsNation.

The president didn’t post anything more about the ratings afterward.

Al Drago/Bloomberg/Getty Images

上周三晚上电视上有两件大事：唐纳德·特朗普总统在共和党中期选举大会上的讲话，以及美国国家橄榄球联盟 (NFL) 2025-26 赛季西雅图海鹰队与新英格兰爱国者队的揭幕战。

NFL比赛吸引了超过2500万观众。特朗普的演讲吸引了约300万观众。

然而，在尼尔森收视率出炉之前，总统已经宣布大会和他自己都取得了胜利。

“总体数据超过了 NFL，”特朗普第二天早上在 Truth Social 上写道，当时这些数据还未公布。

特朗普的帖子写得很难核实，即使现在也是如此。但所有现有数据都表明，海鹰队与爱国者队的超级碗重赛才是周三晚上的主要看点。

值得注意的是，共和党决定将这场史无前例的全国代表大会安排在与本赛季前两场 NFL 比赛同一晚举行。

在大会召开之前，人们提出了疑问——也表达了担忧和玩笑——特朗普和共和党是否会被橄榄球比赛的光芒所掩盖。

“针对 NFL 的节目安排？这是电视大师犯的一个错误，”福克斯电视台联合主持人杰西卡·塔洛夫在周三大会开幕时评论道。

当晚，特朗普发表了近两个小时的演讲，福克斯新闻频道以及其他两个尼尔森收视率最高的频道 Newsmax 和 NewsNation 都进行了现场直播。

福克斯新闻在演讲期间的平均收视人数为 250 万，考虑到该有线电视网在平常晚上也能吸引到几乎同样多的观众，这个数字并不理想。

根据尼尔森的数据，Newsmax 在演讲期间的观众人数接近 40 万，而 NewsNation 的观众人数约为 12.5 万。

特朗普似乎很担心人们会认为这次活动很失败。

第二天早上，他在 Truth Social 上写道，这场活动“非常成功，门票售罄，远超任何人的预期，规模更大、效果更好、意义更重大。它真的非常精彩，在各大流媒体平台上的播放量都非常高，尽管与 NFL 的比赛同期进行，但总播放量还是超过了 NFL。”

他继续吹嘘达拉斯体育馆内人山人海，试图否认记者们观察到的空座现象。

特朗普提到他的演讲“正在各地直播”，仿佛暗示累计观众人数会超过 NFL 比赛的观众人数。

但考虑到海鹰队与爱国者队的比赛在 NBC 广播网和 Peacock 流媒体服务上播出后获得了极高的收视率，这种说法是不合逻辑的。

NBC周一宣布，这场比赛的平均收视人数（包括电视和网络直播）为2510万。相比之下，特朗普首晚演讲的YouTube视频播放量最高也只有几十万次。

特朗普第二晚的演讲时间短得多，而与此同时，NFL在澳大利亚墨尔本举行了首场比赛，旧金山49人队对阵洛杉矶公羊队，比赛在Netflix上进行了直播。

根据尼尔森公司的统计，那场比赛在美国的平均收视人数为1850万。

特朗普第二晚的演讲通过福克斯新闻频道平均吸引了 260 万观众；通过 Newsmax 频道平均吸引了 35 万观众；通过 NewsNation 频道平均吸引了约 10 万观众。

之后，总统没有再就收视率发表任何评论。