The NFL kicked off its new 2023 season the same way it finished last year. By dominating its competition on TV.
Some Week 1 NFL game telecasts generated audiences more than twice the size of college football’s most-watched games, and both NBC Sports and CBS Sports posted their best Week 1 viewership since 2015. (ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” numbers are not yet available.)
NBC averaged 24.9 million viewers for its two-game NFL Kickoff Weekend across the broadcast network, Peacock, NBC Sports Digital, and NFL Digital platforms — up 7% from last year. The two NBC games were the most-watched prime-time TV shows of any kind since Fox Sports’ telecast of Super Bowl 57 in February.
The Detroit Lions’ season-opening win over the Super Bowl champion Kansas City Chiefs on Thursday Night pulled 27.5 million viewers, peaking at 30 million viewers — the largest opening night audience in eight years.
Despite the lopsided 40-0 score, the Dallas Cowboys’ win over the New York Giants still averaged 21.8 viewers Sunday night.
Meanwhile, CBS’ late afternoon national game window averaged 21.4 million viewers on Sunday, up 28%. The main telecast featured the NFC Champion Philadelphia Eagles’ win over the New England Patriots.
Unfortunately, Aaron Rodgers’ season-ending injury will likely hurt what were shaping up to be massive ratings for CBS’ Week 2 coverage of the New York Jets vs. Cowboys.
Fox Sports’ late afternoon national window featuring the Rodgers-less Green Bay Packers vs. Chicago Bears, however, averaged 16,270,000 viewers, down 12.3% from 18,547,000 for Week 1 of the 2022 season.
Several college football games drew big audiences on Saturday, but their numbers still couldn’t compare.
ESPN led the way, averaging 8.8 million viewers for its telecast of Texas’ win over Alabama. With the audience peaking at 10.7 million viewers, the Longhorns’ win vs. the Crimson Tide generated ESPN’s biggest college football regular-season audience since 2015.
Fox finished a close second, drawing 8.73 million viewers for Deion Sanders and Colorado’s Week 2 win over Nebraska. That was the highest audience ever for a Pac-12 game telecast on Fox.
