NFL Ratings Continue to Surge: CBS and NBC on a Record Pace

The NFL’s three primary broadcast partners for Sunday games all capped the first two months of the 2025 regular season with various high TV ratings marks.

Through September and October games, CBS and NBC are drawing their best audiences on record for their respective NFL packages.

NBC is averaging 24.7 million viewers per game for Sunday Night Football. That’s the largest average TV audience through Week 8 since the network took SNF over in 2006. 

Sunday afternoon telecasts on CBS are averaging 18.61 million viewers, which is the network’s best performance through eight weeks since the NFL returned to CBS in 1998. CBS also had its most-watched October since 2015, averaging 19.07 million viewers per game this month (up 7% from last October).

Fox is averaging 19.59 million viewers for its own Sunday afternoon games, which is the network’s best start to an NFL season through Week 8 since 2015 (when Fox averaged 19.74 million viewers per game).

The Top 5

Through the first two months of the NFL season (excluding Thursday’s Ravens-Dolphins matchup), here are the five most-watched games:

• Eagles-Chiefs (Week 2): 33.8 million on Fox
• Cowboys-Eagles (Week 1): 28.3 million on NBC
• Lions-Chiefs (Week 6): 27.3 million on NBC
• 49ers-Buccaneers (Week 6): 26.9 million on CBS
• Packers-Cowboys (Week 4): 26.9 million on NBC

Best of the Rest

Amazon Prime Video is averaging 15.29 million viewers per game for its Thursday Night Football package, which is up 16% over last year, and the streamer’s best mark in four seasons with exclusive NFL rights. 

Leaguewide viewership through Week 8 (which includes ESPN’s Monday Night Football package) is not yet available. But through Week 7, NFL games were averaging 17.6 million viewers across all networks, the best mark since 2015.

Overall, the NFL continues its strong TV performance in the first season of Nielsen’s new Big Data + Panel methodology.