For the second straight year, the Patriots-Steelers rivalry delivered the NFL’s highest overnight ratings of the season.
Sunday’s Patriots-Steelers NFL national window earned a 16.5 overnight rating on CBS, down 3% from last year, which featured the same matchup (17.0), but up 4% from 2016 (mostly Patriots-Broncos: 15.8).
The 16.5 overnight is the highest of the NFL season, surpassing the previous mark of 16.0 set by the same window a week earlier (mostly Eagles-Cowboys). The national window has now delivered a season-high in three straight weeks.
It is also the second-highest NFL regular season overnight in the past two years, behind last year’s aforementioned Week 15 window.
In other Week 15 action, Eagles-Rams scored a 12.5 overnight on NBC’s Sunday Night Football — up 2% from last year (Cowboys-Raiders: 12.3) but down 18% from 2016 (Buccaneers-Cowboys: 15.3). It was the 12th of NBC’s last 15 NFL telecasts to increase over last year.
Not far behind, FOX scored a 12.4 for singleheader coverage featuring Cowboys-Colts in 46% of markets — up 7% from last year (mostly Packers-Panthers: 11.6) and up 6% from 2016 (ft. Lions-Giants: 11.7).
The 12.4 is the highest for the singleheader in Week 15 of the season since 2015 (mostly Panthers-Giants: 15.3), and the highest in any week since Week 3 of last season (ft. Rams-Cowboys: 12.6).
Rounding out the Sunday slate, CBS drew an 8.3 for its early doubleheader window (+24%).
Overnights were not available for NFL Network’s Saturday doubleheader of Texans-Jets and Browns-Broncos, which earned fast-national ratings of 2.9 (-6%) and 4.2 (+5%), respectively.
[Numbers from CBS Sports PR, NBC Sports PR, Fox Sports PR/Twitter 12.17, NFL, Sports Business Daily 12.17]
