The NFL scored its second-largest audience of the young season on Sunday night, while Colorado topped another college football Saturday.
Chiefs-Jets averaged nearly a Nielsen-estimated 25 million viewers on NBC’s Sunday Night Football (nearly 27 million including additional streaming data tracked by Adobe Analytics), the second-largest audience of the season and comfortably the largest television audience of the week. (The full list of NFL ratings this season is available here.)
As usual, the NFL dominated the top of the charts with the seven largest live sports audiences of the week.
Outside of pro football, the college game topped out at 7.24 million for Colorado’s second-straight loss — the smallest audience for a Buffaloes game this season, but still the eighth-largest overall. (The full list of college football ratings this season is available here.)
NASCAR was the top non-football sporting event of the weekend with a 1.4 and 2.51 million for Talladega, the smallest Cup Series audience on record at the track (excluding rainouts).
Elsewhere, PBR Tour bull riding again benefited from an NFL lead-in with 1.85 million viewers on CBS, the Ryder Cup topped out at 1.41 million for live action on Saturday, and the WNBA scored its largest audience on an NFL Sunday since 2016.
Weekly sports ratings, September 25-October 1
Only events with at least 150,000 viewers are listed. Household ratings of 0.55 or below are shown to the second decimal point.
Sunday, October 1
On a Nielsen-only basis, Chiefs-Jets was the most-watched primetime television program since the Super Bowl. (Including NBC’s streaming data from Adobe Analytics, it ranks second among primetime shows behind the Lions-Chiefs Kickoff Game.)
Saturday, September 30
Outside of Colorado-USC, the top college football game of the weekend was Georgia-Auburn on CBS.
Friday, September 29
On a competitive college football Friday, Louisville-NC State took top honors as the late games — Utah-Oregon State on FS1 and Cincinnati-BYU on ESPN — cannibalized each other.
Thursday, September 28
Thursday Night Football has opened the season with its three-largest audiences since moving to Amazon Prime.
Wednesday, September 27
Even without Lionel Messi, Inter Miami’s US Open Cup final against Houston topped the million viewer mark on Telemundo and Universo.
Tuesday, September 26
ESPN’s “Pardon the Interruption” was the top sports program of last Tuesday, while a WNBA playoff doubleheader took top honors among live sporting events.
Monday, September 25
With ABC airing the early window and ESPN the late window, there was less of a gap between last week’s competing Monday Night Football games.
