The NFL scored its largest Nielsen-measured audience of the season, the SEC on CBS dominated the week in college football, and NASCAR ended its season on a down note.
The Week 9 NFL national window on FOX — Cowboys-Eagles in more than 90% of markets — averaged a 13.3 rating and 27.14 million viewers, marking the highest rated and most-watched television program since the Super Bowl. (Keep in mind that is based on Nielsen measurement only; the NFL Kickoff Game averaged 27.4 million across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics, per NBC).
No other NFL window cracked the 20 million mark in Week 9, with Bills-Bengals at 18.36 million on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. The least-watched window of Week 9 was Dolphins-Chiefs on NFL Network, which as previously noted delivered the largest morning NFL audience since 2015.
Shifting to the college game, CBS dominated week ten of the season with 8.82 million for LSU-Alabama and 7.00 million for Missouri-Georgia. The network took three of the top four spots, with its Ohio State-Rutgers game drawing a fourth-place 3.96 million.
NASCAR finished its season on a quiet note as the season finale from Phoenix averaged 2.92 million viewers — the smallest audience for a Cup Series finale since at least 2001.
Weekly sports ratings, October 30-November 5
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, November 5
Sunday’s national window was the fourth NFL telecast this season to average at least 25 million viewers (per Nielsen), the most at this point of a season since 2015.
Saturday, November 4
LSU-Alabama was the most-watched primetime edition of the SEC on CBS in three years.
Friday, November 3
The opening Friday of the NBA In-Season Tournament averaged a 35% larger audience than ESPN’s Friday night games last November.
Thursday, November 2
Thursday Night Football scored yet another double-digit increase in viewership last week.
Wednesday, November 1
The World Series ended on a healthy note last week as the Rangers’ Game 5 win averaged 11.48 million viewers — easily the most-watched game of the series.
Tuesday, October 31
Game 4 of the World Series was the fourth-straight game in the series to hit an all-time record-low and the third-straight to average fewer than nine million viewers.
Monday, October 30
Monday Night Football handily outdrew Game 3 of the World Series on October 30, with even the ABC portion alone topping the Fall Classic.
