In the current era of measurement, perhaps the only thing that can slow down NFL ratings this season is Mother Nature.
Thursday’s Cowboys-Eagles NFL Kickoff Game averaged 28.3 million viewers on NBC and Peacock, per a combination of Nielsen and Adobe Analytics — down from Ravens-Chiefs last year (29.2M), with the caveat that gameplay was halted for more than an hour due to inclement weather. The game averaged 31.9 million before the weather delay at 10:15 PM ET and then averaged 20.2 million after play resumed at 11:24 PM.
With a streaming audience of 4.9 million measured by Adobe Analytics — the second-largest NFL streaming audience ever on the NBC Sports platforms — the Nielsen-measured audience for the game was likely in the neighborhood of 23.4 million.
The Eagles’ win, which peaked at 34.3 million during the 9:30 PM ET quarter-hour, trails only last year as the most-watched Kickoff Game on record. Keep in mind the following caveats: Nielsen is using a new methodology this season that combines its existing panel with “Big Data” from set-top boxes, smart TVs and first-party streaming; Nielsen expanded its out-of-home viewing sample to 100 percent of markets in February; and NBC viewership includes additional streaming data measured by Adobe Analytics that was not tracked prior to 2016.
As a result, it is reasonably likely that Kickoff games like Vikings-Saints in 2010, Saints-Packers in 2011, Packers-Seahawks in 2014 or Steelers-Patriots in 2015 — each of which topped 27 million strictly on an in-home, Nielsen panel-only basis — would rank higher all things being equal.
The Kickoff Game averaged a comfortably larger audience than the following night’s International Series game from Brazil, which aired on YouTube and averaged 16.2 million viewers, though that game used a custom methodology and may not be an apples-to-apples comparison. (Though the gap is large enough that methodology alone would not account for it.) Additional Week 1 NFL figures will not be available until Tuesday at the earliest.
