In Week 3 of the NFL season, it was the usual suspects who moved the needle most.
Sunday’s NFL national window, featuring Cowboys-Bears in most markets, averaged 25.47 million viewers on FOX — the third-largest audience of the season behind Eagles-Chiefs the previous week (33.8M) and the Cowboys-Eagles Kickoff Game (28.3M).
Viewership actually declined from last year, when FOX averaged 27.29 million for coverage featuring Ravens-Cowboys. That is despite this year’s numbers having built-in advantages over prior years due to Nielsen methodological changes; specifically, the shift to the new “Big Data + Panel” methodology and February expansion of out-of-home viewing to cover 100 percent of markets.
Later in the day, Chiefs-Giants averaged 25.3 million on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” (Nielsen + Adobe Analytics), ranking fourth for the season. The top four game windows this season have involved either Kansas City or Dallas, with Ravens-Bills in Week 1 rounding out the top five (24.7M).
The Chiefs’ first win of the season increased only slightly from last year’s equivalent Chiefs-Falcons game (25.1M), and given the methodological changes, that means viewership was almost certainly down all things being equal.
The following night, ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC combined to average 22.85 million for Lions-Ravens on “Monday Night Football” — marking the largest Week 3 “MNF” audience since ESPN acquired rights. The previous high was 19.34 million for Cowboys-Giants in 2022, which again was a panel-only figure.
Rounding out the Week 3 slate, CBS averaged a 7.4 rating and 16.15 million for its singleheader window — down from last year’s panel-only figures of 7.8 and 16.28 million. FOX averaged 15.55 million for its early window, up 7% from last year’s panel-only audience.
NFL game windows are now averaging 20.5 million viewers, up 10% from last year and the highest three-week average on record, with the caveats regarding Nielsen methodological changes.
The 50th anniversary special of “The NFL Today” averaged 2.87 million, no match for “Fox NFL Sunday” at 5.23 million.
