The season’s first Thursday Night Football simulcast scored a slight viewership bump on FOX and NFL Network. Plus: viewership for the season-opening edition of Monday Night Football was higher than Nielsen originally said; the opening games of baseball’s Division Series jumped from last year but fell well short of 2019.
Slight bump for first Thursday Night Football simulcast
Rams-Seahawks averaged an 8.2 rating and 14.76 million viewers in the season’s first Thursday Night Football simulcast on Fox and NFL Network, down a tick in ratings but up slightly in viewership compared to the first simulcast last season (Buccaneers-Bears: 8.5, 14.71M). Versus the first simulcast in 2019, which took place a week earlier in the season, ratings fell 22% and viewership 18% from a 10.5 and 17.91 million for Eagles-Packers.
Compared to the same Rams-Seahawks matchup in Week 5 two years ago, ratings fell 5% (from 8.6) but viewership increased 4% (from 14.26M).
TNF dominated television in every relevant metric Thursday night, its 4.17 rating in adults 18-49 crushing the second-place mark of 0.7 for an episode of “Young Sheldon” on CBS.
Nielsen undercounted Week 1 MNF audience
Nielsen undercounted ABC’s audience for the Week 1 Ravens-Raiders Monday Night Football game and has revised the figure upward by 1.71 million viewers to an average of 8.61 million. As a result, the game’s combined audience across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 has risen from an originally-reported 15.29 million to 16.97 million — the largest for any MNF game since 2016 and the series’ top Week 1 audience since ESPN acquired rights.
The updated figure boosts the season-to-date average for MNF from 14.2 to 14.7 million viewers and nudges the year-over-year increase upward from 22% to 24%.
An updated average for the complete NFL season was not immediately available, but the four-week average of 17.3 million was already a six-year high and up 17% from last year.
Division Series openers up double-digits, but down big from ’19
Thursday’s Red Sox-Rays American League Division Series Game 2 averaged 2.63 million viewers on FS1, up 13% from Yankees-Rays last year (2.33M) but down 22% from Nationals-Dodgers in 2019 (3.35M), both of which aired on TBS. All three games faced NFL competition — Thursday Night Football this year and in 2019 and Monday Night Football last year.
Tampa Bay’s win ranks as the most-watched Division Series opener on FS1 since 2017 (Yankees-Indians: 3.79M), with the caveat that it was only the second over that span to air in primetime.
Earlier in the day, White Sox-Astros Game 1 drew 1.97 million — up 39% from last year (Astros-A’s: 1.42M) but down 44% from 2019 (Cardinals-Braves: 3.51M).
[Nielsen estimates from Programming Insider 10.8, ShowBuzz Daily 10.8, network PR]
