ESPN/ABC hit a Week 7 high for the first half of what may be its final “Monday Night Football” doubleheader.
In the first half of this week’s “Monday Night Football” doubleheader, Buccaneers-Lions averaged a combined 18.8 million viewers across ABC and ESPN — marking the largest Week 7 “MNF” audience since Jets-Patriots on ABC in 1998. That is despite the game airing in an early 7 PM ET window and facing competition from the MLB ALCS Game 7 on FOX and FS1.
Keep in mind of course that Nielsen did not track out-of-home viewing in its estimates until 2020, and did not do so in 100 percent of markets until February.
The Lions’ win was easily the most-watched game on an “MNF” doubleheader night, not counting the Week 18 Saturday doubleheaders that are part of the “MNF” package. Viewership increased 19% from Ravens-Buccaneers on a doubleheader night last year, which aired in a competing window opposite Chargers-Cardinals on ESPN+.
In addition, it delivered the second-largest Nielsen-measured audience of Week 7, surpassing NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.”
The full doubleheader averaged 12.7 million viewers. ESPN did not disclose figures for the Seahawks-Texans late game in a press release, but the math would indicate an audience around 6.6 million, which would be easily the lowest of the season on the network.
Week 7 likely marked the final “MNF” doubleheader, as the pending sale of NFL Media assets to ESPN would result in those secondary windows becoming part of NFL Network’s inventory. “We’re getting out of this side-by-side business,” ESPN president Jimmy Pitaro said over the summer.
Shifting to Sunday action, the NFL national window on FOX (mostly Commanders-Cowboys) averaged an 11.9 rating and 25.63 million viewers — unsurprisingly down from a Chiefs-49ers Super Bowl rematch last year (12.9, 27.08M), but the most-watched NFL telecast of a week in which no other windows hit the 20 million mark.
The telecast delivered the third-largest Nielsen-measured audience of the NFL season, behind the previous week’s national window on CBS (mostly 49ers-Buccaneers: 26.9M) and the Week 2 Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch on FOX (33.8M). (Keep in mind that NBC typically combines Nielsen data with Adobe Analytics, and several of those combined figures rank higher.)
NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” (Falcons-49ers) averaged a 9.0 and 17.89 million, down 2% in ratings but up 1% in viewership from Jets-Steelers a year ago (9.2, 17.64M). Given the changes in Nielsen methodology this year — specifically, its expansion of out-of-home viewing and addition of “Big Data” to its existing panel — it is almost certain that viewership declined year-over-year, all things being equal. NBC’s usual combined Nielsen and Adobe Analytics figure was not immediately available.
CBS was not far behind with an 8.4 and 17.84 million for its singleheader window (Raiders-Chiefs in 55% of markets) — marking the largest audience for that window in Week 7 of the season since 2015, with the caveats regarding Nielsen methodology.
A bit further back, last week’s “Thursday Night Football” game (Steelers-Bengals) averaged a 6.9 and 15.21 million on Amazon’s Prime Video. Officially, viewership increased 55% from Broncos-Saints last year (9.81M), as it is Nielsen policy to compare this year’s “Big Data + Panel” figures to last year’s panel-only numbers. But as Amazon disclosed “Big Data + Panel” viewership last year, it is possible to render an apples-to-apples comparison. On a “Big Data” basis, viewership increased 43% from 10.64 million.
Rounding out the Week 7 slate, FOX averaged a 6.8 and 14.13 million for its early doubleheader window and NFL Network drew a 2.6 and 5.26 million for the Rams-Jaguars International Series game.
