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.

Sunday’s Eagles-Chiefs Super Bowl rematch averaged 33.8 million viewers on FOX, marking the largest Nielsen-measured television audience on any network since their Super Bowl meeting in February.

The Eagles’ win delivered the largest September or October NFL audience on record, and the largest regular season Sunday audience ever on FOX — though between Nielsen’s new “Big Data + Panel” metric and its February expansion of out-of-home viewing, any comparisons to past years are apples-to-oranges.

Earlier in the day, regional action featuring Giants-Cowboys averaged 20.72 million — bringing the full doubleheader to 26.88 million. That is the largest audience on record for an NFL doubleheader on any network, again with the caveats regarding changes in Nielsen methodology.

FOX is now averaging 23.83 million viewers for the season, which is the network’s best-two week average since acquiring rights (once again, with caveats regarding changes in Nielsen methodology).

FOX averaged 17.9 million viewers for the Week 1 NFL singleheader, featuring Giants-Commanders, marking the largest Week 1 audience for the window since 2015. That was also the last time that FOX carried a singleheader in Week 1.

In addition, Nielsen is using a new methodology this season that combines its existing panel with “Big Data” for set-top boxes and smart TVs, a figure that will generally be higher than the panel-only numbers that were the currency prior to this year.

Keep in mind that Nielsen is using a new methodology this season that combines its existing panel with “Big Data” for set-top boxes and smart TVs, a figure that will generally be higher than the panel-only numbers that were the currency prior to this year.

Sunday’s Bears-Bills NFL preseason game averaged 5.1 million viewers on FOX, marking the network’s most-watched preseason game since it carried the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in 2021.

Viewership increased 11% from the lone preseason game on FOX last year, Saints-49ers (4.6M).