A Hail Mary thriller featuring the NFL’s top two draft picks delivered one of the top audiences of the season.
Sunday’s NFL national window, featuring Bears-Commanders, averaged a 12.2 rating and 24.89 million viewers on CBS — down 6% in ratings and 4% in viewership from coverage featuring Bengals-49ers last year (12.9, 26.06M), but still the fourth-largest Nielsen-measured audience this season.
Washington’s Hail Mary win trails only the national window in Week 2 (mostly Bengals-Chiefs: 27.87M), Week 3 (mostly Ravens-Cowboys: 27.29M) and last week (49ers-Chiefs: 27.08M), each of which featured either the Chiefs or Cowboys.
Pitting the top two picks in the NFL Draft — both quarterbacks — Bears-Commanders was flexed to the late window, a rare spotlight for teams whose recent national appearances have largely been restricted to ‘throw out the records’ scenarios like holidays or rivalry games. (It should be noted that the national window still featured one of its recent stalwarts, the Chiefs, whose game against the Raiders aired in much of the country.)
Later Sunday, NBC averaged a 10.9 and 23.9 million for Cowboys-49ers on Sunday Night Football (21.67M per Nielsen, plus additional streaming data tracked by Adobe Analytics) — the network’s most-watched Week 8 edition of SNF. (Keep in mind SNF aired opposite the World Series in many of those years, and in some years of the 2000s even went dark to avoid baseball competition.)
The 49ers’ win increased 30% in ratings and 38% in Nielsen-measured viewership from Bears-Chargers last year (8.4, 15.72M).
As previously noted, Monday Night Football took a hit from World Series competition this year as Giants-Steelers averaged 13.3 million on ABC and ESPN. Additional details here.
Returning to the Sunday slate, CBS drew an 8.7 and 17.21 million for its early doubleheader window — up 25% and 28% respectively from last year (mostly Jaguars-Steelers: 6.9, 13.47M) — and FOX a 7.5 (-23%) and 15.18 million (-24%) for its singleheader. Last year’s comparable window featured the Cowboys.
