The NFL preseason got off to a strong start with the most-watched Hall of Fame Game in four years.
Thursday’s Chargers-Lions Pro Football Hall of Fame Game averaged a 3.3 rating and 6.21 million viewers on NBC, per Programming Insider, marking the largest audience for the annual NFL preseason opener since Steelers-Cowboys on FOX in 2021 (7.31M). Including additional streaming viewership measured by Adobe Analytics, the game averaged 6.9 million.
Ratings increased 14% and viewership 19% from last year’s abbreviated Bears-Texans game on ESPN and ABC, which aired opposite the Olympics (2.9, 5.2M). Versus the previous Hall of Fame Game on NBC, Jets-Browns two years ago, ratings were flat and viewership increased 4% from 5.98 million.
While the Hall of Fame Game remains a massive draw by the standards of preseason sporting events, it has not been immune to the broader decline in television viewing. The game averaged just shy of 11 million viewers a decade ago and once reached as high as nearly 15 million in 1999, when it featured the return to play of the Cleveland Browns franchise.
To put the numbers in perspective, the Hall of Fame Game drew a similar number of viewers as the clinching Mets-Dodgers NLCS Game 6 last October on FS1 (6.27M) and the winner-take-all Nuggets-Thunder NBA second round Game 7 on ABC in May (6.34M). It outdrew 35 of 43 MLB Postseason games last October (81%) and 64 of 83 NBA playoff games this past spring (77%) — and as may go without saying every game of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
For the summer, it ranks ninth among all single-network sportscasts behind the seven games of the NBA Finals and the MLB All-Star Game. (Including multi-network presentations, the Concacaf Gold Cup final would rank higher with a combined audience of nearly eight million across Univision and Fox Sports).
