The NFL season got off to its customary strong start in the ratings, though in the current era of television measurement that must be accompanied by no shortage of disclaimers and clarifications.
Week 1 of the NFL season averaged 21.0 million viewers across television and streaming, the NFL said Wednesday — up 12% from last year and the highest on record. The NFL figure includes first-party streaming (i.e., streaming viewership calculated by the networks), but notably excludes the Peacock-exclusive Packers-Eagles game from Brazil.
With the Peacock game included, Week 1 averaged 19.1 million viewers per the traditional Nielsen panel data — up 5% from last year (18.2M).
While the addition of the lower-rated Peacock game drags down the average, it should be noted that this year’s figure benefited from there being only one doubleheader — as opposed to the double-doubleheader of recent years, which resulted in CBS and FOX cannibalizing each other in the highly rated 4:25 PM ET window.
The Ravens-Chiefs Kickoff Game topped the Week 1 slate with more than 29 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, the largest combined audience yet for the Kickoff Game. On a Nielsen-only, panel-only basis, the game had a 12.6 rating and 24.56 million viewers, down 3% and 1% respectively from the comparable figure for Lions-Chiefs last year (13.0, 24.75M).
NBC also drew a 10.2 and just shy of 20 million for Rams-Lions on Sunday Night Football, down 2% and 1% respectively from Cowboys-Giants last year (10.4, 20.2M). For both NBC windows, the Adobe Analytics streaming audience pulled viewership ahead of last year’s comparable games.
Placing second, the NFL national window on FOX (featuring Cowboys-Browns, Tom Brady’s FOX debut) averaged an 11.3 and 23.93 million — up 41% and 47% respectively from last year, when FOX faced competition from CBS in the window (mostly Packers-Bears: 8.0, 16.27M).
FOX also drew a 6.5 and 13.03 million for its early window, up 23% and 28% respectively from last year’s 5.3 and 10.19 million (mostly 49ers-Steelers). Both windows were the most-watched on FOX in Week 1 since 2020.
The ESPN networks combined to average a 10.9 and 20.43 million for Jets-49ers on Monday Night Football — down 13% and 10% respectively from last year’s closer Bills-Jets opener (12.5, 22.67M), but still the second-largest Week 1 audience for MNF since 2000 (Broncos-Rams: 22.91M).
On CBS, the Week 1 singleheader (featuring Patriots-Bengals in a plurality of markets) averaged an 8.3 and 17.78 million — marking the network’s most-watched Week 1 singleheader since the network resumed airing NFL coverage in the 1998-99 season. CBS has carried a Week 1 singleheader in most weeks since it reacquired rights to the league, though it had not done so since 2020.
Ratings were flat and viewership actually increased 5% compared to last year’s CBS Week 1 doubleheader (17.02M).
In the 1 PM ET window, CBS and FOX combined for a whopping 53 share (30 and 23 respectively), meaning more than half of homes with televisions in use were tuned to the NFL during that window. The Kickoff Game had a 37 share, the FOX late window a 36 and Rams-Lions a 32.
Finally, as previously noted, the Packers-Eagles Peacock game drew just shy of 14 million.
All of the above figures are the traditional Nielsen panel data. Nielsen has been rolling out a new “Big Data + Panel” figure — essentially the same figure it was using on a trial basis for Amazon’s Thursday Night Football last season — that includes first-party streaming data. It is unclear how all of the networks will handle the new measurement figure, but it is worth noting that ESPN/ABC and FOX now appear to be using their own version of the NBC “Total Audience Delivery” that combines Nielsen and Adobe Analytics in their official press releases.
