• by Wayne Friedman , April 24, 2026

Building on its growing NFL game viewership, the three-day coverage of the NFL Draft -- which started last night (April 23) -- keeps growing, now well past 12 million viewership levels on the opening day over the past two years.

Advertising revenue for the NFL draft programming is also climbing.

Analysts expect at least 15% or more national TV advertising revenues on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network this year -- topping the $164.1 million pulled in a year ago, according to estimates from iSpot.

In 2025, national TV ad revenues were up 23% from $133.5 million the year before.

Looking at ad revenues by network, last year ABC pulled in $77.6 million in ad revenue from the three-day run, with ESPN at $41.8 million, NFL Network at $30.6 million and ESPN2 at $14.0 million.

Major advertisers included Goodyear, Nationwide Insurance, NFL, Courtyard, and Dr Pepper.

This year more than half the advertisers in 53 categories have raised media budgets from a year ago, according to a report in Sports Business Journal.

"We’re seeing record pricing, broader category participation, and meaningful budget growth from brands who recognize the NFL Draft as a premier live moment that delivers scale, engagement, and cultural relevance," said Danielle Brown, senior vp/sports streaming and brand solutions for Disney Advertising in an email to Television News Daily.

She adds that there has been more than 130 sponsorships, dozens of new entrants, and many integrated executions with Disney platforms.

A total of 14 hours will air for the NFL draft - in primetime and daytime -- Thursday (primetime), Friday (primetime) and Saturday (daytime).

Last year first round primetime coverage of the NFL draft on Thursday -- on ESPN, ABC, and NFL Network -- averaged a Nielsen-measured 13.9 million. This was up from 12.1 million in 2024.

By way of comparison, the NFL 2025-2026 regular season live games across all networks and platforms was 18.7 million.

Looking at total viewership -- all daypart from all four networks (ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, NFL Network) -- viewership averaged 7.5 million viewers -- 27% more than 2024.

This story has been updated.