Though lacking the drawing power of regular season games, the NFL preseason has attracted strong audiences for NBC.
NBC drew a 6.7 final rating and 10.822 million viewers for Sunday’s Vikings/49ers exhibition game, up 3% in ratings and 4% in viewership from Bears/Broncos in Week 3 of last year’s preseason (6.5, 10.381 mil).
Sunday’s game, the first of the preseason for returning Vikings QB Brett Favre, ranks as the third-highest rated NFL preseason game since ’04.
The game was the highest rated, most-viewed primetime program of the week on broadcast, and was also the top program among adults 18-49 (3.6) and “all the key adult and male demographics.”
Both preseason games on NBC this year drew over 10 million viewers. To put that in some perspective, the Sunday night exhibitions outdrew every game of the 2010 Stanley Cup Final (including the deciding Game 6, which drew 8.279 million) and three of the four golf majors (including the final round of the U.S. Open, which drew 9.566 million).
