A memorable Week 15 of the NFL season brought milestone viewership to NFL Network and big gains to World Cup-fueled FOX.
Saturday’s Dolphins-Bills NFL regular season game averaged a 5.4 rating and 11.06 million viewers on NFL Network, trailing only Steelers-Ravens on Christmas 2016 (14.77M) and Colts-Cardinals on Christmas last year (~12.6M) as the most-watched game ever on the network. (Keep in mind out-of-home viewing was not included prior to two years ago. It is a virtual lock that 49ers-Ravens on Thanksgiving 2011, which averaged 10.68 million without out-of-home, had a larger audience all things being equal.)
The Bills’ win soared over last year’s comparable Patriots-Colts game, which averaged a 3.7 and north of 7.2 million. Notably, it outdrew all-but-two Thursday Night Football games on Amazon Prime this season, the season debut (Chiefs-Chargers: 13.03M) and Dolphins-Bengals in Week 4 (11.72M).
Earlier in the day, Ravens-Browns drew a 4.4 and 8.97 million and the Vikings’ record comeback over the Colts drew a 3.6 and 7.06 million. As one would expect given the network, the early Saturday window and the 33-0 halftime margin, Colts-Vikings averaged the fifth-smallest audience of the NFL season.
Shifting to Sunday, FOX averaged a 9.1 and 18.66 million for singleheader coverage featuring Cowboys-Jaguars in most markets — up 30% in ratings and 41% in viewership from last year. Coverage immediately followed the FIFA World Cup Final in nearly 80% of markets. Somewhat surprisingly given the big lead-in, it was not the most-watched singleheader on FOX this season, trailing the network’s previous edition two weeks earlier (9.9, 19.17M).
Over on CBS, the NFL national window (mostly Bengals-Buccaneers) scored an 11.2 and 21.45 million — down slightly from last year (mostly Packers-Ravens: 11.6, ~22.0M). The network’s early window (featuring Chiefs-Texans) drew a 7.9 and 14.83 million, up slightly year-over-year (mostly Cowboys-Giants: 7.6, ~14.1M).
Rounding out the Sunday slate, NBC drew an 8.4 and 15.38 million for Giants-Commanders on Sunday Night Football — marking the least-watched Week 15 edition of SNF since the same matchup 15 years ago (14.62M) and the lowest rated since ESPN last held rights in 2005 (Falcons-Bears: 7.0).
In a rarity, Sunday Night Football averaged fewer viewers than Monday Night Football. Despite featuring two teams under .500, Rams-Packers averaged a combined 16.1 million viewers across ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Deportes and ESPN+ — on par with Vikings-Bears on ABC and ESPN alone last year and the third-largest Week 15 MNF audience since the series moved to ESPN in 2006.
(Nielsen estimates from ShowBuzz Daily 12.20)
