Cowboys-Bills dominated television for Sunday, December 17, clearing the next-best NFL game by nearly ten million viewers.
Sunday’s NFL national window — Cowboys-Bills in a fully national game — averaged a 13.3 rating and 26.34 million viewers on FOX, easily the largest audience of Week 14. Ratings jumped 19% and viewership 23% from coverage on CBS last year (mostly Bengals-Buccaneers: 21.45M). Additional details on that game and the rest of the Week 14 slate are available here.
Outside of the NFL, soccer took the Sunday crown. The Liga MX Apetura final (America-Tigres) placed second with a 0.9 rating and 2.21 million viewers on Univision, followed by a Manchester United-Liverpool English Premier League match at a 1.0 and 1.71 million across NBC (0.72, 1.26M) and Telemundo (0.23, 451K). Including Adobe Analytics, which measures NBC’s streaming viewership, the EPL match tied Liga MX with the same 2.21 million.
Further down the dial, the Texas-Nebraska NCAA women’s volleyball final averaged a 0.8 and 1.69 million on ABC — the largest women’s college volleyball audience on record. More details are available here.
As usual, the NFL singleheader fueled usually large viewership for a lower-tier sporting event as coverage of the Sailing Grand Prix (Dubai) averaged a 0.7 and 1.33 million on CBS. That is down from the previous Sailing GP telecast in the post-singleheader window, which aired last month (1.78M).
Shifting to golf, the final round of the PGA Tour Father-Son Challenge — featuring Tiger Woods and his son Charlie — averaged a 0.6 and 1.07 million on NBC, down from last year’s 0.7 and 1.18 million.
College basketball topped out at a 0.18 and 308,000 for USC-Auburn, the first Nielsen-rated game involving Bronny James. A Northwestern State-LSU women’s game followed with a 0.09 and 153,000. Returning to men’s action, Seton Hall-Missouri rounded out the ESPN slate with a 0.14 and 299,000. ESPN wrapped up its Sunday schedule with a 0.08 and 131,000 for a Shohei Ohtani documentary in primetime.
Sunday, December 17 sports ratings
