The NFL suffered a rare double-digit decline in viewership in Week 1 of the season, albeit with some context mitigating the drop.
Week 1 of the NFL season averaged 19.5 million viewers, down 13% from last year (22.3M), down 7% from 2024 (21.0M) and the least-watched opening week of the season since 2023 (18.7M). This year marks the first time since the COVID-altered season of 2020, when games faced unprecedented competition from the NBA and NHL playoffs, that viewership has declined in Week 1 of an NFL season.
There are some mitigating circumstances. This year was the first since 2023 in which the NFL scheduled competing doubleheaders on FOX and CBS in Week 1. While more viewers were watching in the late window than usual — a combined 16.6 rating and 38.94 million viewers across FOX (8.7, 20.35M) and CBS (8.0, 18.60M) — splitting the audience between two networks means that both networks averaged fewer viewers than last year’s solo window on CBS (11.0, 23.89M).
The dueling doubleheaders also impacted viewership for the 1 PM ET window. Instead of carrying a singleheader that last season averaged 17.9 million, FOX aired an early regional slate that had a mere 4.9 rating and 10.80 million viewers — the least-watched Week 1 NFL window on any network since the aforementioned 2023 season (5.3, 10.19M). The CBS regional window (6.2, 14.10M) was also down from last year’s 8.0 and 17.05 million.
Across the competing game windows, FOX and CBS averaged 16.0 million viewers — the second-highest average in the four years the NFL has scheduled competing Week 1 doubleheaders (2021-23 and 2026), and up 5% from the prior such occurrence in 2023.
Beyond the competing doubleheaders, this year’s viewership averages include the International Series game from Australia on Netflix (7.9 rating, 18.52M). The previous two years, the International Series games on Peacock in 2024 (Packers-Eagles: 14.2M) and YouTube in 2025 (Chiefs-Chargers: 18.5M) were excluded from the average.
Despite the three-year low, this year’s Week 1 was still the third-most watched on record. That comes with some other caveats, namely the changes in Nielsen methodology that have largely benefited sports viewing since Nielsen began tracking out-of-home viewing in its estimates in 2020, and especially over the past two years.
On that issue, it should be noted that NFL chief data and analytics officer Paul Ballew expressed concerns prior to the season about changes Nielsen made to its year-old “Big Data + Panel” methodology for the new television season, telling Sports Media Watch in August that the “the results we’ve seen in some cases, the limited data that they send us, have negative impacts on sports.”
As previously noted, NBC’s Cowboys-Giants “Sunday Night Football” game topped the Week 1 slate, averaging a 12.2 rating and 25.66 million viewers. The Patriots-Seahawks Kickoff Game ranked second at an 11.8 and 25.09 million, followed by the season premiere of “Monday Night Football” at 23.2 million on the ESPN family of networks.
