NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has been hinting at the possibility of placing full-time franchises in London.
Goodell is finally getting some data to indicate early-morning game telecasts can pay off with solid TV numbers in the U.S.
The NFL Network’s telecast of the New York Giants’ 27-22 win over the Green Bay Packers averaged 5.5 million viewers across TV and digital.
That’s up 55% from last year’s Week 5 game in London between the New York Jets and Atlanta Falcons. It made Giants-Packers the NFL’s most-watched International Series game since they were launched in 2016.
“There’s no question that London could support not just one franchise, I think two franchises,” Goodell said this weekend. “I really believe that.”
As the most popular team in the nation’s biggest TV market, the Giants are always a good TV draw. Ditto for the Packers with superstar quarterback Aaron Rodgers.
But rather than scheduling the usual stinker between two losing teams, the league pitted two teams with winning records (3-1) against each other for the first time in London. That helped drive TV ratings from across the pond. More:
- Digital streaming of Giants-Packers across various platforms delivered an average minute audience of 299K — up 22% from last year and the highest digital AMA for any International Series game on NFLN.
- The 5.5 million viewership number will only go up, since it does not include over-the-air broadcast viewing in the New York, Green Bay, and Milwaukee TV markets.
Entering the 2022 season, the NFL had played 40 regular season games internationally, including 30 from London. There will be five international games this season: three in London; one in Germany; and one in Mexico.
NFLN will telecast the league’s first-ever regular-season game from Germany on Sunday, Nov. 13, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers taking on the Seattle Seahawks in Munich (9 am ET).
