Sports Ratings Tracker

FOX topped Week 2 of the NFL preseason with a 2.6 rating and 4.90 million viewers for a Sunday night Seahawks-Titans game August 23, down from the network’s lone preseason game last year, a higher-profile pairing of the Bears and Bills in the same Sunday night window (5.1M).

ESPN averaged a 1.8 rating and 3.40 million viewers for its lone preseason game, Raiders-Texans on August 20, with those figures rising to 2.0 and 3.65 million including local over-the-air simulcasts in the home markets. ESPN last year averaged 2.90 million for Bengals-Commanders, not including the OTA simulcasts.

On NFL Network, Cowboys-Seahawks topped the Week 2 slate with a 1.1 and 2.32 million on August 22, preceded by Rams-Chiefs at a 1.0 and 2.03 million and Browns-Bears at a 0.8 and 1.61 million. The network drew a 0.9 and 1.68 million for Jets-Steelers the previous night , followed by a 0.7 and 1.49 million for Packers-Broncos.

The Cowboys and Chiefs played in the two most-watched game windows of Week 3 of the NFL season, with the NFL national window (mostly Cowboys-Bears) taking the top spot with 25.47 million viewers — actually down from last year, despite Nielsen’s methodological changes.

Chiefs-Giants ranked a close second with 25.3 million (a combination of Nielsen and Adobe Analytics).

Monday Night Football (Lions-Ravens) also topped the 20 million mark with 22.8 million.

For more on the NFL Week 3 numbers, see this article.

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.

For the full Week 1 NFL ratings wrap, see this article.

NFL preseason games averaged 2.2 million viewers across TV and digital platforms, up 17% from last year and the highest average since 2018. That includes an average of 1.8 million for games on NFL Network, the league-owned channel’s largest preseason audience on record and an increase of 26% from last year.

NFL Network had its most-watched preseason game since 2015 with 49ers-Raiders averaging 2.5 million viewers on August 16.

In addition to the previously noted 5.1 million viewers for Bears-Bills on FOX and 6.2 million for the Chargers-Lions Hall of Fame Game on NBC, ESPN averaged 2.90 million for Bengals-Commanders on August 18 and CBS drew 2.56 million for Vikings-Titans on August 22.