The NFL had its most-watched Week 1 on record, with all the attendant caveats regarding Nielsen methodological changes.
Week 1 of the NFL season averaged 22.3 million viewers across TV and digital platforms, up 5% from last year, up 19% from 2023, and the highest average on record for the opening week of play. (The average excludes Friday’s Chiefs-Chargers International Series game from Brazil, which was measured using a custom methodology that generated public criticism from researchers at the other networks.)
Keep in mind that Nielsen as of this month has shifted to a new methodology that combines its existing panel with “Big Data” from set-top boxes and smart TVs (and in some cases first-party streaming from participating networks). In addition, Nielsen in February expanded its measurement of out-of-home viewing to cover 100 percent of markets, up from about two-thirds at this point last year. Between those two changes, viewership this season will generally have a built-in advantage over all prior years.
Even with the changes that Nielsen has made, the NFL believes that the measurement company is still undercounting viewership for its games. Indeed, it may be the case that these figures are still an undercount of the actual audience, even as they benefit from favorable comparisons to past years.
The Cowboys-Eagles NFL Kickoff Game was the most-watched of Week 1 with an audience of 28.3 million viewers across Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. That is despite a lengthy weather delay that pushed the finish past Midnight ET. NBC took the top two spots in Week 1, with Ravens-Bills averaging 24.7 million on “Sunday Night Football.”
Keep in mind that a disproportionate amount of NBC viewing is tracked by Adobe Analytics, rather than Nielsen. The Adobe Analytics streaming audiences for NBC’s Week 1 games were 5.0 and 3.0 million respectively, meaning the Nielsen-measured audiences were around 23.3 and 21.7 million.
As a result, on a Nielsen-only basis, the CBS national window (mostly Lions-Packers) was the most-watched of Week 1 with 23.89 million viewers. That was the network’s largest Week 1 audience since 1998, with the caveat that CBS has only aired an unopposed Week 1 doubleheader two other times over that span (2000 and 2015). CBS also drew 17.05 million for its early game window (mostly Steelers-Jets).
In the season debut of “Monday Night Football,” Vikings-Bears averaged 22.1 million across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 — trailing only Bills-Jets in 2023 (22.6M, panel only) as the most-watched Week 1 edition of “MNF” since ESPN began airing the series. Keep in mind that in most of those years, not only did the Week 1 games air solely on cable, but ESPN typically carried a doubleheader that required unusual start times for both games.
Finally, FOX drew 17.9 million for its singleheader window (mostly Giants-Commanders), the largest Week 1 audience for that window since 2015 — which was the last time FOX carried a singleheader in Week 1.
