The 2023 NFL Draft is in full swing and it took just one round to see how fans missed football around the country.
There are 259 picks over seven rounds, but only the first round is likely to pull in the type of audience that it did on Thursday.
Round 1 of the 2023 NFL Draft averaged 11.29 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, and NFL Network, per Joe Pompliano.
That made it the third-largest audience for the NFL Draft since 2018.
The first round brought in more viewers over huge events like the Daytona 500, Wimbledon, Indianapolis 500, and Stanley Cup Final.
The total unduplicated audience was 34.2 million, a two-percent increase over last year.
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While everyone is confident about who will be the first player drafted, there was league-wide expectation that the 2023 draft would get wild beginning with the second overall pick.
As it turned out, the Houston Texans had everybody fooled and indeed selected CJ Stroud with the No. 2 overall draft pick. They would then trade for the No. 3 pick with the Arizona Cardinals and took Will Anderson.
The biggest shock of the night was easily Will Levis spending his entire night in the green room without being selected by anyone after many thought he would be taken somewhere in the top-10 or 15.
Luckily for him, Levis was taken early in the second round by the Tennessee Titans.
