Tom Brady’s return to New England lived up to the exhaustive NBC hype, both on the field and in the ratings.
Brady and the Buccaneers’ narrow win over the Patriots averaged a 14.6 rating and 26.75 million viewers on NBC’s Sunday Night Football, marking the highest regular season NFL rating since Week 14 in 2019 (mostly Patriots-Chiefs: 16.1) and the highest in primetime since Week 14 in 2016 (Cowboys-Giants: 14.9).
The game averaged a 34 share, meaning 34 percent of households with televisions in use were tuned to the game in the average minute — the highest ever for NBC’s Sunday Night Football package.
The Nielsen-reported audience of 26.75 million viewers is the largest for any NFL game on NBC — including playoffs — since the Titans-Ravens Divisional Round game in January 2020 (29.40M), the largest for a regular season game on the network since Thanksgiving 2015 (Bears-Packers: 27.75M) and the largest for a non-Thanksgiving game on the network since Week 1 in 2015 (Giants-Cowboys: 26.77M).
Including additional streaming viewers not tracked by Nielsen — 1.3 million across Peacock and the NFL and NBC digital platforms — the game’s audience of more than 28 million viewers trails only the Week 17 game in 2012 (Dallas-Washington: 30.28M) as the highest in SNF history.
Brady’s return to New England, where he won his first six Super Bowl rings, was the subject of exhaustive hype across the NBC family of networks. NBC even sent its Today morning show and NBC Nightly News to Foxboro in advance of the game, the kind of synergy typically associated with a Super Bowl or Olympics.
Higher than usual ratings were expected, but it was not necessarily a sure thing that the kind of lofty audiences once common for NFL games were in play. Entering Sunday, the number of regular season windows in the past five years with at least 26 million viewers — 16 — only slightly exceeded 2015 alone (14). Even this year’s Kickoff Game — a made-for-TV matchup between Brady and the Dallas Cowboys that went down-to-the-wire — fell short of 25 million in the traditional Nielsen tally.
Versus other comparable games, Brady’s first game back in New England averaged a lower rating and fewer Nielsen-reported viewers than Peyton Manning’s 2013 return to Indianapolis, which also aired on NBC’s SNF (15.9, 26.9M). Keep in mind the 2013 numbers do not include the out-of-home audience now included in all Nielsen figures, nor do they include the additional streaming audience NBC began adding to its Nielsen tallys in 2016.
Brett Favre’s 2009 return to Green Bay with the Minnesota Vikings averaged a 17.4 and 29.82 million as the lead game of the FOX national window.
Patriots secondary market Providence led all markets Sunday night with a 45.1 rating and whopping 73 share, meaning 73% of homes with TVs in use were tuned to the game in the average minute. Boston ranked second at a 43.8/70, arguably more massive given the size of the market. Tampa-St. Petersburg was a distant third at a 27.1/51.
Hartford ranked third at a 23.9/44 and Cincinnati was the top market outside of New England and Florida (21.2/40).
Ratings jumped 74% and viewership 77% from Week 4 last year, when SNF faced unpreceded NBA Finals competition (8.4, 15.08M). Compared to the more normal circumstance of 2019, ratings and viewership increased 7% and 11% respectively from a 13.7 and 24.11 million for Cowboys-Saints.
Buccaneers-Patriots delivered a 7.4 rating in adults 18-49 and a 5.3 in adults 18-34, both ranking second for the season behind the Cowboys-Buccaneers Kickoff Game (7.6, 6.0). Its 9.1 rating in adults 25-54 is a season-high.
[Nielsen estimates from NBC Sports, ShowBuzz Daily 10.5]
