The Baker Mayfield-led Buccaneers may be making a claim as one of the NFL’s marquee draws.
Last Sunday’s NFL national window (49ers-Buccaneers in 78% of markets) averaged a 12.5 rating and 26.82 million viewers on CBS, marking the second-largest Nielsen measured audience of the NFL season, behind only the Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch on FOX in Week 2.
The strong performance is an indication that the now 5-1 Mayfield-era Buccaneers could be a marquee draw going forward. A window featuring 49ers-Buccaneers — originally a 1 PM ET game that was flexed into the late slot — outdrew telecasts that featured marquee matchups like Cowboys-Bears in Week 3 and Ravens-Chiefs in Week 4.
The national window was technically not the most-watched of Week 6. The latest edition of NBC’s “Sunday Night Football” — Lions-Chiefs — averaged 27.3 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, marking the third-largest audience of the NFL season and the network’s second-largest NFL audience in the month of October since it began carrying Sunday night games in 2006.
Keep in mind that NBC is the only one of the major networks to regularly issue a combined viewership figure that includes both Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. On a Nielsen-only basis, Lions-Chiefs averaged an 11.9 and 24.5 million, ranking second for the week.
Both NBC and CBS can claim to have aired the most-watched Week 6 NFL window since 2016, albeit with all the standard caveats regarding Nielsen methodological changes — specifically the company’s 2020 inclusion and 2025 expansion of out-of-home viewing and its shift last month’s to “Big Data + Panel” methodology.
Earlier in the day, CBS averaged 6.7 and 13.8 million for its early doubleheader slot (Browns-Steelers in 61% of markets) — up from last year on FOX, with the same caveats regarding Nielsen changes. FOX averaged a 7.6 and 15.37 million for its singleheader window, down from last year on CBS. NFL Network drew a 2.8 and 5.45 million for its Broncos-Jets game from London, up from last year’s Jaguars-Bears (2.4, 4.63M).
Shifting to the weeknight slate, ABC averaged 12.9 million viewers for Bears-Commanders and ESPN pulled 10.0 million for Bills-Falcons in the latest split “Monday Night Football” doubleheader. ESPN had its largest audience yet on one of the split-doubeheader nights. The two networks combined to average 21.9 million during the period when the games overlapped, tied as the highest for any overlapping period on a doubleheader night.
Finally, last week’s edition of “Thursday Night Football” (Eagles-Giants) averaged a 7.2 and 15.62 million on Amazon’s Prime Video — officially the fifth-largest “TNF” audience on Prime Video. (It is official Nielsen policy to compare “Big Data + Panel” to prior years’ panel-only metrics.)
While “Big Data + Panel” only became the official Nielsen currency in September, those numbers were being tracked the past two years and publicized by Prime Video. Officially, Eagles-Giants increased 19% over 49ers-Seahawks last year (13.18M), but on a “Big Data” basis, it increased by 12% over last year’s 13.91 million.
