As will be the case every week through mid-February (barring anything unforeseen), the NFL dominated the weekly sports ratings charts.
The Lions-Chiefs NFL Kickoff Game was the most-watched game in Week 1 of the NFL season, averaging nearly 25 million viewers on TV alone. (Unlike the other networks, NBC’s streaming viewership is not included in Nielsen’s estimates, but is calculated separately by Adobe Analytics. Across TV and streaming, the game averaged 27.5 million.)
The six Week 1 windows (Bills-Jets on Monday night will count toward next week’s chart) unsurprisingly delivered the six-largest sports audiences of the week. The full list of NFL ratings can be seen here.
The top non-NFL audience was 8.76 million viewers for Saturday’s Texas-Alabama college football game on ESPN and ESPN2, followed close behind by 8.73 million for Nebraska-Colorado in Deion Sanders’ home debut on FOX. The full list of college football ratings can be seen here.
Outside of football, the top sporting event of the week was Coco Gauff’s win in the US Open women’s final, which averaged 3.42 million on ESPN.
Weekly sports ratings
The weekly list now includes sports studio shows like ESPN’s College Gameday and FOX Big Noon Kickoff, plus the daily programs such as “Pardon the Interruption” and the morning debate shows. Only events with at least 150,000 viewers are listed. Household ratings of 0.55 or below are shown to the second decimal point.
Sunday, September 10
On the first Sunday of the NFL season, the late window of the CBS doubleheader topped the charts as more than 21 million viewers watched coverage that featured Eagles-Patriots in most markets.
Saturday, September 9
As mentioned previously, Texas-Alabama eked out a viewership victory over Nebraska-Colorado as the combined ESPN and ESPN2 audience was 8.76 million, to the latter game’s 8.73 million on FOX alone.
Friday, September 8
With Illinois-Kansas the biggest football game of the day, tennis took center stage as Daniil Medvedev’s semifinal upset of Carlos Alcaraz averaged 2.26 million on ESPN. As one would expect, that was no match for Alcaraz’ win over American Frances Tiafoe last year.
Thursday, September 7
The NFL Kickoff Game was the top television program of the week with a 13.0 rating and 24.8 million viewers (27.5 million including streaming). The US Open women’s semifinals, which included a lengthy delay in the Coco Gauff-Karolina Muchova semifinal, averaged 1.83 million.
Wednesday, September 6
Primetime coverae of the US Open quarterfinals topped NFL Kickoff Eve with 1.81 million viewers.
Tuesday, September 5
Just like Wednesday, primetime US Open quarterfinal coverage led the way Tuesday with 1.64 million. Coco Gauff and Novak Djokovic played in the day session, which topped the million viewer mark.
Monday, September 4 (Labor Day)
Duke’s upset of Clemson was the top game of Labor Day with 4.4 million viewers.
