NFL Brazil Game Nabs Record Audience

CBS Sports’s coverage last Sunday of a Ravens-Cowboys game from Rio de Janeiro made history on multiple fronts, extending the NFL’s viewership resurgence.

The network said late Tuesday that the game averaged 24.9 million viewers, making it the most-watched NFL international game in records going back to the late 1980s. It also was the most-watched Week 3 game for CBS since 2014. 

The game from Brazil was set up for ratings success in several ways. The broadcast was purposely scheduled in a national late-Sunday afternoon slot, traditionally the NFL’s most-watched window. That placement diverged from the NFL’s typical practice of staging international games in either early-morning or primetime windows for U.S. audiences. 

Rio de Janeiro is only one hour ahead of the U.S. Eastern time zone, allowing much more schedule flexibility than games played in Europe or Australia. 

Sunday’s audience metrics were also likely boosted by a serious nor’easter that hit much of the highly populated U.S. Northeast corridor. Additionally, the Ravens-Cowboys game ended after MLB’s final regular-season games and after that league’s playoff field was set. 

The CBS Sports broadcast highlighted another strong week for NFL viewership. Among the other Week 3 highlights:

• Amazon Prime Video averaged 16.8 million viewers for the Thursday Night Football coverage of a Falcons-Packers game, up 2% from the comparable game in 2025. The online retail and streaming giant is off to its best viewership start since it gained exclusive TNF rights in 2022. 
• Fox Sports averaged 17.9 million viewers for its early Sunday afternoon coverage, led in part by a Chargers-Bills game. That figure was the highest in that slot, and up 11% over the comparable window from 2025. 
• Through three weeks, CBS is averaging 19 million viewers for its NFL coverage, up 6% from the comparable period in a record-setting 2025 and supporting the network’s bullishness heading into this season. 

Those figures continue the historic upswell seen during Week 2 and further reverse the 13% viewership decline from Week 1. Full audience data from Week 3 games will be released Thursday.  

NBC Sports was a slight aberration from the larger trend, averaging 20.8 million viewers for its Sunday Night Football game between the Broncos and Rams, down 18% from a comparable Week 3 game last year between the Giants and Chiefs, perennially one of the NFL’s most-watched teams. Still, each of the network’s first four NFL games has topped 20 million in average viewership for the third straight season.