A down-to-the-wire AFC Championship Game rematch got the NFL season off to a strong start in the ratings.
Thursday’s Ravens-Chiefs NFL Kickoff Game averaged a 12.6 rating and 28.9 million viewers on NBC (24.3 million per Nielsen fast-nationals, plus a streaming audience of 4.6 million measured by Adobe Analytics) — marking the largest combined audience on record for the Kickoff Game (dates back to 2002). The previous high was a Nielsen-only audience of 27.5 million for Vikings-Saints in 2010.
Keep in mind the game was delayed until 8:45 PM ET due to inclement weather.
The Chiefs’ narrow win, which peaked with 33 million in the 9:30 PM ET quarter-hour, increased 5% in viewership from Lions-Chiefs last year (26.8M). A sharp increase in streaming viewership — up 65% from last year’s 2.8 million — accounts for most of the growth, as the Nielsen-measured audience rose just 1%.
The Nielsen household rating actually declined 2% from last year’s 12.8, though the corresponding 37 share was the highest for any regular season NFL game on NBC since it reacquired rights.
Notably, NBC’s viewership would have been even higher had Nielsen been using its new “Big Data + Panel” methodology. Under that measure, the Nielsen audience would have been 25.7 million — pushing the combined Nielsen and Adobe audience past the 30 million mark (30.3M).
As with any viewership records, it is worth noting the biggest Nielsen change of recent years — the addition of out-of-home viewing, which did not occur until 2020. In all likelihood, a number of games — Vikings-Saints in ’10, Saints-Packers in 2011 (27.2M), Packers-Seahawks in 2014 (27.1M) and Steelers-Patriots in 2015 (27.4M) — would likely have come in even above the 30.3 million figure had out-of-home been included.
To put the impact of the methodological changes in perspective, this year’s 12.6 rating is the same as in 2017, when the Chiefs played the Broncos in the Kickoff Game. That matchup averaged 22.1 million (including 21.8 million per Nielsen).
Kansas City led all available markets Thursday with a 43.4 rating and 80 share, followed by Baltimore at a 24.5 and 60.
