CFL viewership hits new peak on ESPN

Johnny Manziel’s CFL debut gave the league a record television number for ESPN. Manziel’s first CFL game, as the starting quarterback for the Montreal Alouettes against the Hamilton Tiger-Cats last Friday, attracted an average audience of 406,000 on ESPN2, making it the most-watched game for ESPN since it started showing CFL contests in 1980. The previous record was a Saskatchewan-Edmonton game in June 2013 that drew an average of 347,000 viewers on ESPN2. The Manziel game drew a combined average audience of 730,000 on TSN and RDS.