NFL Streaming Record Still Stands Nearly a Year Later

It’s been a season full of viewership records for the National Football League, but its current highwater mark for streaming is nearly a year old, and could be safe for at least a little while longer.

The NFL will have a streaming-based tripleheader on Christmas, with Netflix showing the Cowboys and Commanders, followed by the Lions and Vikings. Amazon will then close out the holiday with a Broncos-Chiefs game in primetime. Each will be attempting to break the viewership average of more than 24 million, set last year for the Netflix Christmas doubleheader, that represents the biggest audience in league history for a streaming game. 

Based on what has been a banner year in linear viewership for the NFL, one might have expected that mark to have already fallen—particularly as streaming also continues to capture a greater share of overall media consumption. 

The league is up 8% in overall viewership to 18.6 million per game through Week 15, its highest mark at this point in the season since 1989. Each of the NFL’s domestic rights holders has posted a series of audience milestones during the season, peaking with a Thanksgiving Day game between the Chiefs and Cowboys that averaged more than 57 million viewers and set a regular-season record.

The NFL streaming record, however, has stayed intact. Among the factors surrounding that situation:

• A Sept. 5 game between the Chiefs and Chargers from Brazil was shown on YouTube for free, and there were widespread hopes that the open nature of the platform and the game presentation would produce a record audience. Instead, the game became muddled in an industry controversy regarding YouTube’s use of a non-accredited viewership measurement process, which after revisions produced an average audience for the game of 19.7 million. 
• Amazon has been on a major growth wave this season for Thursday Night Football, with its season-to-date average of 14.96 million up 13% from last year and better than any network to have those rights. Despite that escalation, and a regular-season record of 19.4 million for a Dec. 4 game between the Cowboys and Lions, the Thursday night package remains among the smallest of the NFL broadcast windows. 
• The three Christmas games now look far worse than when they were unveiled in May. Four of the six teams involved are officially out of playoff contention, the Lions are clinging to a 8% chance, and only the Broncos have punched their postseason ticket. Conversely, the Christmas 2024 doubleheader on Netflix involved four teams that would all go on to last season’s playoffs. 

The next big possibility for another NFL streaming record could be in the playoffs, as Amazon will show another game in the wild-card round. A Steelers-Ravens game from last year’s opening round averaged 22.1 million on the platform, and remains Amazon’s biggest NFL audience to date.