With a very different schedule than in past opening weeks, the NFL started its expanded 18-week campaign with a modest bump in the Nielsen ratings.
Week 1 of the NFL season averaged 17.4 million viewers across the NFL’s various platforms, up 7% from last year and the league’s second-largest opening week average in the past five seasons.
The Cowboys-Buccaneers Kickoff Game delivered the highest rating and viewership of Week 1 with a previously-reported 13.4 rating and 24.81 million (26.4 million including additional streaming data not tracked by Nielsen), the most-watched season-opener on TV since 2016 (Panthers-Broncos: 25.19M).
Also hitting a multi-year high was the season premiere of Monday Night Football. The ESPN “Megacast” of Ravens-Raiders — which included coverage on ABC and ESPN2 — combined to average 15.29 million viewers, up 59% from last year’s doubleheader and the highest for any Week 1 edition of MNF since Philadelphia-Washington in ’13 (16.52M).
Of note, the Peyton and Eli Manning-fronted ESPN2 telecast averaged 800,000 viewers, accounting for five percent of the total audience. That is around what ESPN is said to have been expecting. By comparison, the Nickelodeon version of January’s Bears-Saints Wild Card game accounted for 7% of that game’s total audience.
Keep in mind the Ravens’ win marked the first MNF opener since 2005 on broadcast television. It was also the first Week 1 edition of the series to begin at a normal time (8:15 PM ET), as opposed to the 7 and 10 PM ET doubleheaders that had been previously common.
As for Sunday’s games, CBS led the way with a 10.0 and 19.54 million for the second half of its doubleheader (Browns-Chiefs in 85% of markets) — the network’s second-largest Week 1 audience since it resumed airing NFL games in 1998. Keep in mind that over that span, CBS has only aired a Week 1 doubleheader two other times (2000 and 2015).
The competing late window on FOX (Packers-Saints in 84% of markets) averaged just an 8.3 and 16.24 million, down 37% in ratings and viewership from last year (mostly Buccaneers-Saints: 13.2, 25.85M) — with the caveat that FOX did not face a competing national window on CBS last year.
Due to the expansion of the NFL schedule to 18 weeks, the NFL elected to have FOX and CBS air competing doubleheaders in Week 1, just as they have in Week 17 in past years. The windows clearly cannibalized each other, with neither network drawing as well as it typically would in that timeslot. Nonetheless, the combined figures — 18.0 and 35.78 million — are far in excess of what the NFL usually draws on a single network.
Earlier in the day, CBS drew a 7.5 (+1%) and 13.93 million (+3%) for coverage featuring Steelers-Bills and FOX a 6.0 (-17%) and 11.18 million (-17%) for coverage featuring Eagles-Falcons. The latter ranks as the lowest rated and least-watched Week 1 window on broadcast TV since 2008.
Returning to primetime, NBC drew a 9.6 and 17.64 million for Bears-Rams on Sunday Night Football, down 7% in both measures from last year (Cowboys-Rams: 10.4, 18.94M) and the lowest rated and least-watched Week 1 edition of SNF since ESPN last aired the series in 2005.
[Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 9.14, NFL PR 9.14, ESPN PR, CBS Sports PR]
