Even with a pairing of teams that finished under .500 last season, the NFL Hall of Fame Game still delivered its customary audience.
Last Thursday’s Panthers-Cardinals Pro Football Hall of Fame Game averaged 6.99 million viewers on NBC across a Nielsen-measured linear audience and streaming viewership tracked by Adobe Analytics — officially ranking as the most-watched edition of the preseason opener in five years, since Steelers-Cowboys on Fox Sports in 2021 (7.33M).
The Panthers’ win was also the most-watched Hall of Fame Game on NBC Sports since 2017 (Cowboys-Cardinals: 8.3M).
Viewership increased 1% from last year’s Hall of Fame Game — a higher-profile pairing of the Chargers and Lions (6.90M) — well within the margin that can be fully explained by Nielsen’s shift to its new “Big Data + Panel” methodology. While it is a virtual lock that viewership would have declined all things being equal, it is no small feat that a matchup like Panthers-Cardinals finished close enough to last year for methodology to matter.
The Hall of Fame Game was a bigger television draw before its move to Thursday nights in 2017. The last Sunday night edition, Vikings-Steelers in 2015, averaged 11.0 million on NBC. Save for the two that aired on NFL Network in 2007 and 2012, every Sunday night Hall of Fame Game — from 2006-15 — averaged more viewers than this year’s edition.
Since the move to Thursday, the game has only topped the seven million mark twice — the aforementioned 2017 and 2021 games, both of which featured the Cowboys.
As usual, the Hall of Fame Game delivered the type of audience other leagues only generate during their postseasons or All-Star games. Between the other three major sports, 33 total telecasts over the past year have had a larger audience across the NBA (22), Major League Baseball (11) and the NHL (0). (Including international contests such as the World Baseball Classic and Olympic men’s hockey, that figure rises only to 37, with the United States’ semifinals and finals of both tournaments making the list.)
